Why is Information Architecture important?

Khawar Latif Khan
4 min readJul 6, 2020

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Sources of information, including a laptop, mobile phone, magazine, etc.
Photo Credits: Aleks Dorohovich on Unsplash

Several times, you might’ve found it hard to follow a voluminous instruction manual, failing to separate useful content from unintelligible descriptions. Similarly, on certain websites, despite the fancy design and eye-catching logos, you might’ve wondered how to extract valuable information. This feeling of getting lost, overwhelmed, and ultimately frustrated has not much to do with the amount of information you’re looking at. It is, in fact, more closely related to the way it is organized and presented to you. There are two magic words holding the key to this quagmire: Information Architecture.

Information Architecture (IA) is exactly what the term implies: an architecture of information. Just like you need to consult (and listen to) an architect before building a new home or designing a workplace, you need an information architect on board in order to develop helpful content for users. As the significance of an architect increases, if the project at hand is to be turned into a skyscraper, the importance of IA gets elevated if the volume of content gets increased or complicated.

Information Architecture is necessary to make sense of information. It serves as a director in the big play of information.

What an information architect does can be called the unveiling of the knowledge network. Whatever the nature of your content — may it be a sports magazine, a software instruction manual, or an entertainment blog — you are, in one way or the other, creating a web of knowledge on a particular subject. This resource of yours, based on the connections between different articles and the similarity in themes, is a knowledge network, the strings of which are tightly knit. When a user interacts with your content, he/she is picking one string, looking at it in a distinct manner. What the user feels the need for, and at the same time fails to see, in this instant is the supporting web of information.

For example, if a student wants to fill out the application form for a college, he/she would need to understand the eligibility criteria, the fee structure, and dates to remember, among other things. If your knowledge network does not provide this content, the student is bound to feel lost. Here, as mentioned above, the audience does not see the whole network but does feel the need to have all the supporting information. If the application form does not include the required content or appears disconnected, it will be rendered useless. A well thought out IA, hence, adds value to the journey of users, letting the information flow such that it is easy to follow and provide specific help.

Image showing the main page of a website with links to other pages and resources.
Photo Credits: Seobility

IA, in other words, is necessary to make sense of information. It serves as a director in the big play of information, that starts working way before the curtain is raised, is not seen on the stage (wearing a director’s hat), but is the first to receive awards and acclaim afterward.

IA helps you in meeting the needs of users without even interacting with each one of them.

IA and Content

In today’s age of content, the importance of IA has become more pronounced. A simple Google search and can result in a hundred sources, that too within a mere thousandth of a second, each claiming to be useful. If in such a situation, you tend to lose your users by overwhelming and frustrating them when they visit your webpages, you’ll end up with no audience to create content for. IA helps you in meeting the needs of users without even interacting with each one of them, making sure that you’re ready to serve them when they reach out to you.

A good way to look at the current online knowledge network is to create sitemaps. It is astonishing how even the basic sitemaps, without any complex design and use of multiple colors, can reveal a lot about your content. Sitemaps are developed to understand the flow of knowledge and to make sense of the links between different pages. A sitemap can then be used to identify areas for improvement, which can then lead to the development of a good IA.

A drawing with a simple sitemap.
Photo Credits: Needpix

The creation of a useful IA, one that is comprehensive and reusable, is a complicated task, for sure. There are, however, some resources that can be of extreme help in this process. Nevertheless, the role of IA in attracting and retaining the audience is so vital that it is worth all the effort.

Sources

  • Brainhub. Information Architecture Definition, Roles, Strategies, and Resources.
  • Usability.gov. Information Architecture Basics.

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Khawar Latif Khan

An engineer turned communications specialist with a passion for creating helpful and understandable content.