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I’m pleased to announce our first guest post, by Fran Alexander, taxonomist extraordinaire and writer of the excellent taxonomy and information architecture blog VocabControl. So please read on to discover why you really do need to care about IA.
“It’s so boring – nobody cares how a site is structured, they just do a search.”
“Information Architects (IAs) just want all sites to look the same.”
“No two people understand a website in the same way, so you can’t set up a site to suit everybody anyway.”
“People want to personalise websites now anyway, so there’s no point in having a site structure.”
These are just a few of the things people have said to me recently about information architecture, prompting me to leap to its defence.
Nobody cares
Information architecture is the underlying structure of your website. It is a bit like the foundations of a house. Nobody wants to see them or know that they are there, but if they are not strong enough in all the right places, cracks will start to appear.
The information architecture of a website includes things like how the site is divided up, what pathways users can follow to move around the site, what they need to see to use the site and what they only need to see if they are interested in a specific thing, where new content will appear, and what will happen to the old content. The bigger and more complicated a site is, the more important it is to get the information architecture right.
People only want a certain amount of information on each web page, so for sites with huge amounts of information (like transport planners) presenting the information in logical chunks, in the order that people need it, really helps. For sites with complicated functions – like playing a game – making sure people can move in and out of the function, ending up somewhere useful, is important to keep them on the site.
Even for very small sites with fairly limited content, making sure it is organised so people can see what is available quickly means they are more likely to find what they want rather than give up. You may only have four pages, but calling them Squiggles, 10 Things, Barry’s Page, and More Things is amusing, but it doesn’t really tell anyone what to expect, which is usually not good if your site is your online portfolio or CV, or you are trying to sell anything. If you are going to be deliberately obscure, you will need excellent real-world marketing!
IAs just want all sites to look the same
People who say this are usually referring to a personality clash between a particular designer and a particular IA. Good information architecture and exciting design should support each other.
Graphic designers are often naturally non-verbal people – it’s kind of obvious – that’s why they are good at the visual stuff and wanted to be designers in the first place, but it means they can fail to appreciate how much verbal people really need those word cues to help them. Conversely, verbal people tend to forget how much they actually rely on non-verbal cues to support memory and navigation. Some people excel at design and at IA, but many specialise in one rather than the other.
A good information architect will want to work with designers to make sure that the site structure they are building will be presented attractively and be interesting and good designers will appreciate that they are creating a site that people need to be able to use easily, so design and IA should work together not against each other. A site that looks good at first but is frustrating and difficult to use will soon start to appear annoying to the user.
People just search
It is true that you should have a good search function if your site is more than a few pages long or holds more than a few pieces of content, but people are very bad at constructing searches, especially if they don’t already know what is on your site. What happens if the search results don’t bring up what they want? Have you given them another way of finding their way around, or are you happy for them just to give up? Many people will try a mixed approach – a bit of browsing around and a bit of search, so a good navigation system is important, and that is part of the site’s information architecture.
Even if you rely on search, providing results related to a sensible site structure will help people to work out whether the reference to “mouse” is about computer peripherals or small rodents. Seeing where in the site the search results come from gives people more context to help them understand which of the results is most likely to be the one they want.
No two people understand a site in the same way
Everybody is different, but lots of us are not all that different, and people will adapt themselves to a group view. We do this all the time – when driving on roads, watching TV, walking in the park – none of these things provide me with a personally tailored experience, but neither do they leave me totally at a loss. However, when I go to an unfamiliar country, I will almost certainly need some help. Many visitors to your site will not need any extra help but some will. So good IA can make sure there are options aimed at different people and good IA becomes more, not less important, the more of a personal experience you wish to provide. A personalisable site is more complicated to use as it has to incorporate the personalisation options, and many people won’t want to bother, so the site needs to work whether it has been customised or not. You also need to make sure that all the elements will continue to interact with each other in a sensible and pleasing way and that the whole thing is robust enough for people to be able to do what they want without breaking it.
People just want to add more stuff
For sites where user-generated content is important, it is true, people want to be able to add things easily and without really thinking about what they are doing, but this means you need to have done the thinking for them in advance – by sorting out strong IA. Already there are lots of web 2.0 conventions – blogs displaying in reverse chronological order, with the most recent post first, for example – but that might not be the best way for your site. You need to think about what happen to old content. Does anyone ever need to find it again, if so how are they going to do that? Are you going to make users tag things when they upload them o r save them into folders, or is all that going to be optional or automatic? You could automatically sort out content into different types or by date uploaded, for example. Information architecture is all about making sure you have the answers to these questions before you spend time, money, or effort perfecting your code.
Convinced?
Information architecture is changing all the time as technology develops, but it is all about thinking through what you want to do with your site and setting it up to do that right from the start.
Good information architects will be able to advise on things like taxonomy – the headings and subheadings you use – usability – so people don’t get stuck, and accessibility – so you don’t discriminate against people (or break the law). Search engine optimisation and marketing are aspects of information architecture that are important commercially. Affective interaction – how people feel when they use your site – managing social media and online communities, and exploiting the semantic web are other increasingly important issues.
The early information architects had far fewer options and tools at their disposal, so many of the older textbooks are getting a bit dated, but the fundamental principles remain the same. If you sort out what it is you want to do and get that right from the start, you will be building your site on solid foundations. You don’t want to knock down your house once it has been built, just to sort out a bit of missing concrete in the foundations, and you don’t want to have to recode big chunks of your site, in a hurry just after you’ve launched, because you’ve suddenly realised your users can’t get where they want to go or do what they want to do.
Still not convinced?
Listen to this excellent and entertaining podcast:
http://www.boxesandarrows.com/view/ia-summit-09-keynote
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