Help users find what they’re looking for first time, every time, with well designed information architecture.

Information architecture is the backbone of any successful website. It‘s how content is structured and labelled so it’s easy for users to find what they’re looking for.

A well designed IA is particularly important for large sites and those with a lot of content – getting it wrong can frustrate users and turn them away.

Our proven methodology follows these steps:

1. background – build an understanding of your business, your customers, and the content on your site
2. research – find out how people will think about your content, usually through card sorting
3. create – work with your project team to create multiple options for the IA
4. test- determine what works and what doesn’t through testing the IA with users, then refine it and test again if needed
5. map – find the best place for your current content in the new structure

Our sister company, Optimal Workshop, has developed three tools to create and test information architectures.

Benefits

Our approach to information architecture is:

• simple – our IA tools and processes are very easy to use
• quick to execute – do one or several iterations of each test during the user centred design process
• in-depth – get a lot of useful data, fast
• established – our techniques have been refined by IA professionals over many years
• user-driven – base your design decisions on real user input instead of the gut feelings of designers, information architects or stakeholders

Deliverables

• site map – provides the overall site structure and labels
• IA summary report – details the final information architecture, results from each round of testing and rationale for decisions
• content map – shows where existing content will appear in the new structure