Information architecture: A how-to

There are 2 aspects to making IA work in a project - an understanding of the key principles of information architecture and a knowledge of activities to put them into practice. This presentation will examine the "how to’s" of information architecture. We’ll look at how to take a content inventory, analyse content, conduct card sorting, analyse user research, choose the right structure, create an information architecture and test it. These activities drive an informed design process so you can be confident in your decisions and communicate them to other people.

Transcript

1. Information architecture: A “how-to” Donna Maurer – Maadmob Interaction Design
2. Web Directions South Information architecture: A ‘how-to’ About me • Freelance information architect/interaction designer  I design structures & interfaces for complex informational & interactive systems  6+ years pro experience, as an innie, outie & freelancer  Designed business applications, websites, intranets • Practice, teach and write about IA and IxD • Chair for next year's IA Summit • Board member for the Information Architecture Institute • Writing a book about card sorting - due Jan 2007
3. Web Directions South Information architecture: A ‘how-to’ About this talk • How to work through an IA project  Where the core is about organising content  So people can discover what they need • How to think like an IA • References  http://del.icio.us/donnam/IAworkshopNZ  Speaker notes on the slides  Some images have been removed, so the recording may sound strange in a couple of spots
4. Web Directions South Information architecture: A ‘how-to’ A project overview
5. Web Directions South Information architecture: A ‘how-to’ User research
6. Web Directions South Information architecture: A ‘how-to’ User research – tips • Go to people, don’t have them come to you • Watch them • Talk to them • Audio-record sessions • Take good notes • Transcribe sessions • Use more than one method
7. Web Directions South Information architecture: A ‘how-to’ User research methods • Methods for collecting rich information  Interviews  Card sorting  Contextual enquiry, observation, shadowing  Task analysis  Probes • Methods for collecting a lot of information  Surveys  Diary studies • ...and then there’s focus groups
8. Web Directions South Information architecture: A ‘how-to’ Analyse user research
9. Web Directions South Information architecture: A ‘how-to’ Affinity diagramming example
10. Web Directions South Information architecture: A ‘how-to’ Dimensional analysis example
11. Web Directions South Information architecture: A ‘how-to’ Think about information behaviours • Information modes  Known-item  Exploratory  Don’t know what you need to know  Refinding • Information behaviours  Reviewing summaries of items  Examining details  Comparing multiples  Understanding contexts and situations  Learning about people in the environment  Perceiving trends  Predicting implications  Monitoring status or activity  Identifying by criteria  Establishing similarity
12. Web Directions South Information architecture: A ‘how-to’ Card sorting • A simple technique to learn about how people perceive content groups • Content items are written on index cards • People group the cards in ways that make sense for them • Results are used as an input into a new IA
13. Web Directions South Information architecture: A ‘how-to’ Card sorting - planning • Planning  Participants - end users, in small groups or individually  Method - manual or tool-based  Place - for groups, room with a large table  Content - select items for the cards  Cards - create cards, assemble post-its and pens • Content selection (the important but tricky part)  Too granular and you may end up with too many cards  Too broad and you may lead the exercise too much  You do not have to do the whole site at once
14. Web Directions South Information architecture: A ‘how-to’ Card sorting - analysis
15. Web Directions South Information architecture: A ‘how-to’ Analysis spreadsheet
16. Web Directions South Information architecture: A ‘how-to’ Dendrogram
17. Web Directions South Information architecture: A ‘how-to’ Content analysis
18. Web Directions South Information architecture: A ‘how-to’ Content analysis • Content analysis is the process of  Understanding content by analysing it  Identifying patterns and content relationships  Focusing not on 'pages' but content elements • Start with a content inventory or wishlist
19. Web Directions South Information architecture: A ‘how-to’ Content analysis • Think about  format  document type (publications, reports, how to, 'stuff’)  topic  audience  source  structure  accuracy  page elements
20. Web Directions South Information architecture: A ‘how-to’ Designing information structure
21. Web Directions South Information architecture: A ‘how-to’ Choose classification schemes • Date • Alphabetical • Geography • Task • Audience • Tag-based • Topic  formal, existing ones - dewey, LOC, commodity  informal, developed for the purpose  Date is a natural organisation scheme for anything that happened, or will happen at a point in time. It works best when people are looking at the site frequently. If this is not the case, alternate organisation schemes will be necessary so people can easily find relevant historical content.
22. Web Directions South Information architecture: A ‘how-to’ Choose classification schemes • Date • Alphabetical • Geography • Task • Audience • Tag-based • Topic  formal, existing ones - dewey, LOC, commodity  informal, developed for the purpose • An alphabetical scheme suits content arranged by name (such as author or artist), where the name is clear and it is likely people will look for the content by the name. • Few sites use alphabetical as the primary organisation scheme. A-Z indexes, as supplemental navigation, provide a terrific alternate method for finding content as long as the index uses labels that are sensible for site readers.
23. Web Directions South Information architecture: A ‘how-to’ Choose classification schemes • Date • Alphabetical • Geography • Task • Audience • Tag-based • Topic  formal, existing ones - dewey, LOC, commodity  informal, developed for the purpose • A geographical organisation scheme is perfect for anything relating to physical geography, particularly travel sites. Some sites still make you choose your country before letting you in, but this practice is less common than it once was.
24. Web Directions South Information architecture: A ‘how-to’ Choose classification schemes • Date • Alphabetical • Geography • Task • Audience • Tag-based • Topic  formal, existing ones - dewey, LOC, commodity  informal, developed for the purpose • Task-based schemes are an interesting challenge. In order for them to work, the tasks must be clear and unambiguous. I often use them on internal business systems for data processing tasks.
25. Web Directions South Information architecture: A ‘how-to’ Choose classification schemes • Date • Alphabetical • Geography • Task • Audience • Tag-based • Topic  formal, existing ones - dewey, LOC, commodity  informal, developed for the purpose. • Audience-based schemes are also an interesting challenge. In order for them to work, people must be able to clearly associate with one of the audiences. People are often tempted to implement role-based systems for intranets - these often fail as it is difficult to determine what your role actually is.
26. Web Directions South Information architecture: A ‘how-to’ Choose classification schemes • Date • Alphabetical • Geography • Task • Audience • Tag-based • Topic  formal, existing ones - dewey, LOC, commodity  informal, developed for the purpose
27. Web Directions South Information architecture: A ‘how-to’ Choose classification schemes • Date • Alphabetical • Geography • Task • Audience • Tag-based • Topic  formal, existing ones - dewey, LOC, commodity  informal, developed for the purpose • The majority of sites have a topic- based organisation scheme, usually determined by the design team. • Most websites use topic-based schemes • Content analysis will tell you what types could be used • User research will give you ideas about how people may like to approach the content
28. Web Directions South Information architecture: A ‘how-to’ Choose type of structure • Hierarchy • Database • Faceted • Organic • Strict hierarchies are an ideal - they rarely match the real world or content we are trying to organise. It is very common for an item to truly belong in more than one place or for users to look in more than one place for the item. • Unfortunately, file systems and many content management systems enforce a strict hierarchy. When this is the case, we have to use navigation aids like related links to manage the fact that content can't be in more than one place at a time. • A site can use more than one complete hierarchy. For example, a site could have a complete topic-based hierarchy, and a document type hierarchy. This allows all content to be accessed by more than one method.
29. Web Directions South Information architecture: A ‘how-to’ Choose type of structure • Hierarchy • Database • Faceted • Organic • One of the key advantages of using a database structure is so the information can be made available in a number of ways. Each Digital Web article is stored only once in the database, but you can get to it by topic, date, author, title and type. The index pages are generated automatically, so they don't need to be updated whenever an article is added
30. Web Directions South Information architecture: A ‘how-to’ Choose type of structure • Hierarchy • Database • Faceted • Organic
31. Web Directions South Information architecture: A ‘how-to’ Choose type of structure • Hierarchy • Database • Faceted • Organic • Faceted classification uses a database structure • Facets are metadata elements • Using facets in browse:  Start at whatever facet you like  No keyword necessary  Never get a null result  Suits - where users may wish to explore from any starting point • Using facets in search:  Start with a keyword search  Refine based on characteristics present in the results  Suits - where search returns many results and users want to refine
32. Web Directions South Information architecture: A ‘how-to’ Choose type of structure • Hierarchy • Database • Faceted • Organic
33. Web Directions South Information architecture: A ‘how-to’ • At this point we know a lot about our users, have figured out what classification schemes are appropriate, have chosen the correct structure and know what the business is trying to achieve. • Now we have to take a creative leap and turn that all into a solution
34. Web Directions South Information architecture: A ‘how-to’ Design conceptual structure
35. Web Directions South Information architecture: A ‘how-to’ Design conceptual structure
36. Web Directions South Information architecture: A ‘how-to’ Design categories, groups or facets • Input - user research, business goals, content analysis • Create draft groupings • See if it suits the content  Slot content into categories  Apply metadata • Modify until content fits • Create sub-groups • Keep it user-focused
37. Web Directions South Information architecture: A ‘how-to’ Design labels • Labeling ideas:  User research  Card sorting  Search terms  Referrer terms  Tags • Good labels  Match concepts & word usage of readers  Are used consistently  Accurately describe the destination or content • Link labels can be long - better trigger words
38. Web Directions South Information architecture: A ‘how-to’ Characteristics of a good IA • Balances business & user goals • Balances breadth & depth • Allows people to easily find what they need • Provides more than one way to content • Represents the content • Has a coherent underlying concept • Exposes information as needed
39. Web Directions South Information architecture: A ‘how-to’ Design browsing structures & page layouts
40. Web Directions South Information architecture: A ‘how-to’ Don't design in front of the computer!!!
41. Web Directions South Information architecture: A ‘how-to’ Many browse methods
42. Web Directions South Information architecture: A ‘how-to’ Design browsing structures • Start at a content page, not the home page  The content page is the hardest working page on the site  Figure out what navigation a representative content page needs (and its readers need) • Design browse structures for index pages • Design the home page last
43. Web Directions South Information architecture: A ‘how-to’ Good browsing structures • Provides more than one method to get to content  Main, supplemental, contextual, search • Exposes relevant other content as needed • Each step a person takes is clear and result is as anticipated • Supports the site structure well
44. Web Directions South Information architecture: A ‘how-to’ Link-rich pages
45. Web Directions South Information architecture: A ‘how-to’ Link-rich pages
46. Web Directions South Information architecture: A ‘how-to’ Document it
47. Web Directions South Information architecture: A ‘how-to’ Site maps
48. Web Directions South Information architecture: A ‘how-to’ Site maps
49. Web Directions South Information architecture: A ‘how-to’ Wireframes
50. Web Directions South Information architecture: A ‘how-to’ Wireframes
51. Web Directions South Information architecture: A ‘how-to’ Questions & thanks • http://maadmob.net/ • 0409-778-693 • donna@maadmob.net