Information Architecture: What Is It and Where Did it Come From?
Picture an architect planning, designing, and creating buildings and other physical structures. They need to design buildings that are functional and pleasant to use, while also being technically sound and aesthetically pleasing. People generally enjoy being in buildings where they can navigate and find where they need to go, rather than running around from one part to another not being able to find their destination.
Information architecture is similar, but relates to websites and digital products instead of physical buildings. Formally defined, Information Architecture, or IA, is the structural design of information or content (including text, photos, and videos), within a digital product. It focuses on organizing and labeling websites so that users can find what they are looking for.
Real World Examples: Signage at airports, and subway navigation maps are great examples of Information Architecture in the real world. They both play the role of helping people understand where they are, what’s around, and what to expect.
In order to understand IA, we first need to know where it originated. The term first started appearing in the 1970s.
In 1970, a group of people at the Xerox Palo Alto Research Center were responsible for developing technology that could support the ‘architecture of information’. They were single-handedly responsible for many important contributions in what is today known as human-computer interaction. They introduced the first person computer with a user-friendly interface, laser printing, and the first WYSIWYG text editor.
Modern use of the term IA, strictly related to the design of information, was officially introduced in the mid-1970s at the American Institute of Architecture conference where a man named Richard Saul Wurman introduced an idea that he called ‘the architecture of information’.
Later on, in 1996, Wurman published his ideas in a book called Information Architects. It included a collection of works and graphics by designers whose work exemplified the term information architecture.
Two years later, a book called Information Architecture for the World Wide Web was published and quickly became a best-seller. This book presented frameworks for design and organization of content within complex websites. Further editions of this book, evolved and expanded on its definition of information architecture.
Today, there exists a robust job market for information architects, tens of millions of webpages that reference information architecture, and even a professional organization called the Information Architecture Institution.
Effective IA depends on the interplay between three things: Ontology, Taxonomy, and Choreography.
Ontology is the meaning of the product’s elements. For example:
Labels: easily understood names given to individual categories
Tags: data about content that helps to organize it at a deeper level
Taxonomy is the science or technique of classification, putting like elements together. Taxonomic hierarchy is used to rank information. Things can be ranked in different ways, for example: importance/frequency of use, recency, alphabetically, numerically, etc.
Choreography can be represented as a user flow, the path through a product that a user can take to accomplish a task.
IA Heuristics
These set of principles can be used to evaluate existing IA and help to predict the effectiveness of design.
1. Is it findable?
Can the user locate what they’re trying to find? Is there more than one way to access things? How does findability differ across devices and platforms?
2. Is it accessible?
Can it be used across all expected devices and channels? Is the product resilient and consistent across channels? Does it meet standards of accessibility for target audiences? Is it friendly towards visual/hearing impaired users?
3. Is it clear (easily perceptible)?
Easy to understand? Is the target demographic’s grade and reading level considered? Is the path to task completion obvious and free of distraction?
4. Is it communicative (talkative, informative, timely)?
Are messaging and copy effective for users to complete the tasks at hand? Do navigation labels and messaging help user orient themselves within the product? Are labels and messaging consistent across the product and its channels?
5. Is it useful?
Are users capable of producing intended result? Is it usable? Users able to complete task without frustration?
6. Is it credible (worthy of confidence, reliable)?
Is content up to date, updated in a timely matter? Is it easy to contact a real person? Easy to verify product security when making payments?
7. Is it controllable?
Are tasks and info a user would want to accomplish available? How well are errors anticipated and eliminated? How easily can user recover from errors? Are there features that allow users to tailor info/functionality to their context? Are exits and other important controls clearly marked?
8. Is it valuable?
Desirable to target user? Can user easily describe the value? Improves customer satisfaction? Create enough value that users pay for it (if depends on payment)?
9. Is it learnable?
Able to be easily understood and used? Can be grasped quickly? How does it reduce complexity of more complicated processes? Does it behave consistently enough to be predictable?
10. Is it delightful?
How is it superior to competitors? How does it differentiate on same features? What cross-channel ties can be explored with delight? How are user expectations exceeded? What can you turn from ordinary -> extraordinary?
IA is all about making the complex clear and helping users find information and complete tasks. Do this by understanding how the pieces fit together to create the larger pictures, and how items relate to each other within the system.
Please comment below if you’d like to share any thoughts or examples of IA from your own work, or that you admire!
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