The Eight Principles of Information Architecture

This post is written as part of my work for DesignLab’s UX Academy. The assignment invites us to further explore the field of Information Architecture. This post focuses on Dan Brown’s eight principles of IA.

We use information architecture to help us organize content so that it’s easier to understand, navigate around, and get stuff done. In 2010, Dan Brown, the founder at EightShapes, developed eight principles of information architecture to help designers make decisions.

1. Object Principle

Just like the thinking behind object-oriented programming, we think of content as living, breathing objects. Each object has a lifecycle, behaviors and attributes. Objects are created based on an existing template, known in programming as a Class. As designers, it’s our job to create that template.

2. Choice Principle

The paradox of choice states that a greater number of options increases cognitive load and makes it more difficult for people to make decisions. So we only want to offer a focused set of choices that are meaningful to our users.

3. Disclosure Principle

Humans can only process so much at once, but we can use what we already know to predict what might come next. The Disclosure Principle suggests we only want to show enough information to help people figure out what they’ll find next. Then they can decide if they want to dig deeper.

4. Exemplar Principle

Cognitive scientists have discovered that our brains represent categories as networks of good examples. Descriptions don’t work so well. Instead, we can best explain what’s in a category by showing some good examples of its contents.

5. Front Door Principle

Not everyone comes through the front door, so the home page doesn’t have to do everything. About half of your users will encounter your design through a side entrance. On a website, this would be the equivalent of finding your site via a search engine. Although they may land on the content they’re looking for, the page should still tell people where they are and what else they can do.

Illustration credit: Al Power on Dribbble https://dribbble.com/shots/1501952-Dublin-Door

6. Multiple Classification Principle

People have different ways of looking at information and our design should accommodate that. We should offer many different classification systems to help people find content. But don’t overdo it. Having too many schemes can overwhelm people and cause too much distraction.

7. Focused Navigation Principle

Navigational schemes should be focused and free of extraneous links. This gives each menu a purpose by which we can refer to them. This is different than naming menus based on their location, such as “Global Nav” or “Main Menu.”

Proper menu focus helps design teams better communicate (and understand themselves) what the navigation menu is for. For example, a Topic Navigation could be the site’s main menu. An additional menu might live in a sidebar, but we could call it Timely Navigation if it has links to relevant subtopics. The name should indicate its purpose rather than its location.

8. Growth Principle

The content you have today is a fraction of the content you will have tomorrow. A designer can craft a page to anticipate new content forms, such as video, presentations, photo galleries, etc.

We can also future-proof our menus if we remember the previous principle of focused navigation. If you assume your design needs several different navigation schemes, you allow the possibility of growth within each one. Menus only have to anticipate the addition of new topics, while pages only need to anticipate new content types.

Illustration credit: Noah Jacobus on Dribbble https://dribbble.com/shots/4932645-Personal-Growth

The catch

Keep in mind, these principles make a few assumptions:

1. The designer’s main focus is on the structure itself, followed only by the UI representing the structure. In other words, site maps and flow charts are more important than wireframes, though all are valuable.
2. The designer understands the relationship between their users and content or functionality they’re trying to provide. If you’ve talked to your users and done your research, you should be in good shape.
3. The designer understands the range of content or functionality they’ll need to support. Either you’ve completed a content inventory, or you’ve outlined the limits of user-generated content.

Sources:
https://www.designprinciplesftw.com/collections/eight-principles-of-information-architecture