Why do Information Architecture ?

Information architecture is the science of figuring out how to build a site that;

• Meets your requirements
• Makes it easy for your customers to find things
• Makes it easy for your customers to do things
• Makes it easy for you to communicate with your customers
• Blows the socks off the competition and your customers

No one would seriously consider building even the most basic building with out employing an architect to produce the plans for a builder to follow; so it should be with building a social web application.

At Velocit we follow the five steps to Information Architecture

Step 1 - Define your site’s goals
Step 2 - Define the user experience
Step 3 - Build a skeleton site.
Step 4 - Create the visual design
Step 5 - Build!

Step 1 - Define the Site’s Goals

All web applications are built in response to many needs to support your business and success depends on fulfilling these needs. Defining the site’s goals establishes a clear, well-documented idea of what these needs are.

In the sites goals we gather answers to following questions;

Why do you need this web application?

If the answer is “making lots of money” then we are looking at a different site to one where the primary goal is to provide information.

What does the web application need to accomplish?

If the answer to the previous question was “making lots of money” then the website needs to have a high conversion rate of visitors to buyers.

Or if the primary goal is to provide information or news that a user will keep coming back for, then a key need to accomplish will be for the user to find the required information and be directed to other relevant information.

What are the short- and long-term goals of the site?

Unless you are a small business then there are going to be a lot of different ideas about the goals of the site. Many people might not be thinking in the long term; they may have an immediate need to get the site up and running. Looking toward the future will save you a lot of headaches and money.

Who are the intended audiences?

The number-one mistake made in designing web applications is to not think about your audiences when designing the site.

Why will people come to your site?

Are you selling a product? Do you have a unique service? Why will people come to the site the very first time? Why will they come back?

Step 2 - Define the User Experience

User experience is not just a practice or a process, it’s a philosophy. Providing a positive user experience is the successful and streamlined completion of a need defined in the site’s goals.

So how do users define a good website? Words like intuitive, consistent, trustworthy and recognisable are all used but how do we achieve these responses to your site?

We use the list of intended audiences and list of needs, to define user stories for each of the identified needs for each audience.

User Stories

User stories tell the tales of users experiencing the site, and they help visualise the site and its users. We also use these user stories in validating the site’s design once it is finished.

To get started on a user story, we need to bring the user to life. Create a character for that user, and give him a name, a background, and a task to accomplish on the site. Then we write a story about how the character uses the site to complete the given task.

Step 3 - Start to build a skeleton site

This part of the information-architecture process is to gather the pieces for creating the structure and organisation of the site.

Content Inventory

In order to get an idea of how the site will work, we will create a list of types of content. We will advise on what the main types of content should be such as Basic page, Blog entry, News item, Testimonial, FAQ, Forum and Web form and list out the data fields and constraints on these fields for each type. Such as Blog author and content creation date.

Taxonomies define what a piece of content is, it could be the attributes of a product or the related topics of a news story. Taxonomies are very good at helping users find related content, and can be flat (1-level deep) or hierarchical. Are these selected from a defined list or user generated. Taxonomies are also invaluable for creating search criteria for custom content types.

Using the content inventory, we can see if any additions are needed to the list of functional requirements. If the content inventory has pages for cancelling purchases, the system had better be able to cancel purchases.

Site structure listing

For the site map, we organise the content and define the basis for the site’s structure.

We work with you to decide on the final groupings and names for content categories, and use them as the basis for defining the major sections of the site and the names of each section. From this we create a hierarchical map of the site, called the “site structure listing.”

Navigation

As part of the user design we need to understand how users will get from one place to another and how to prevent them from getting lost, defining the navigation system for the site solves these problems.

We document the global navigation system and many of the local navigation systems as known at this point..

Step 4 – Create the visual design

Layout Grids

The first step is to make layout grids that define the structure and organization of the site. Then design sketches will establish a general look and feel. Layout grids and design sketches together lead to page mock-ups, which in turn lead to the construction of Web-based prototypes.

Visual Design

One of its main purposes is to provide users with a sense of place. They need to know where they are on the site, where they have been, and how to get to where they want to be. A good site structure combined with an effective visual design enables users to construct a mental map of the site.

Several other elements must be considered:

• branding
• advertising
• sponsorship
• navigation
• page titles
• header graphics
• footers, which include copyrights

Step 5 – Build!

The magic happens…………