Information Architecture: Website Architecture, Information Systems, Information Analysis

Information Architecture

Every click, every navigation label, every graphic, and every word must be purposely designed to easily guide the user to the sale.

Every construction project starts with a blueprint — every successful project, that is. And that goes for a website or a complete enterprise content management system, too. The blueprint is known as Information Architecture.

Despite its buzzword status, Information Architecture continues to be an essential component of the website development process because it addresses everything from the website's purpose, audience, and strategy to the design of its navigation systems, page layouts, and content organization.

As you can imagine, there are numerous benefits of a properly designed and implemented Information Architecture, including:

Save time finding and managing information
Save money developing your website the right way the first time
Save time and money expanding your website

Information Architecture builds the foundation that will enable your company to easily and seamlessly expand the scope of your website when you choose to do so. For example, you may decide to transform your informational corporate website into an e-commerce website to take advantage of the growing online market or you may want to add a blog to increase user interaction and retention.

Although Information Architecture is hardly a linear process, and there are several points when it overlaps other areas of the website development process, there are essentially three phases of the process:

Research and Strategy
Design
Testing & Optimization

Architecture Design

After agreeing to the best strategy for your website or software, we move forward designing the Information Architecture system. This is where the ideas are realized in the form of deliverables.

Flowcharts
Flowcharts are diagrams that depict the processes that your website's visitors experience. For example, e-commerce websites use shopping cart software that allows customers to add products to a shopping cart and proceed to a checkout area, which is where the transaction takes place.

Browsing products, adding products to your cart, and buying those products are processes that are carefully architected using flowcharts to insure that the customer doesn't encounter any hang-ups. To achieve a user-friendly experience, we thoroughly research, design, and test the system.

Blueprints
Blueprints map the website's navigation and the relationship between pages and individual pieces of content. The benefit of blueprints is that your website is easy to use, meaning your customers find what they're looking for and don't get lost in the process.

Blueprints are most useful when dealing with large numbers of pages and products, as well as multiple navigation levels.

Wireframes
Whereas blueprints show the flow of navigation, wireframes show the layout of each type of page. Considerations such as the prominence of the logo, the structure of navigation menus, the space for content, and the placement of a phone number, are put to rest in the wireframe design process.

Content Maps
Your website's content is important and it's everywhere — filing cabinets, brochures, phone book ads, networks, personal computers, and in your head. During the research phase we discover those content sources through interviews with the key members of your organization. During the design phase we collect the content, organize it, and make it web-ready.

Sometimes we learn during the research phase that you will need additional content to accommodate the needs of certain demographics within your target audience. Our content developers work with you to write content that reaches those prospects and generates leads or sales.

How these Deliverables Benefit You
These "diagrams," once approved and compiled in a report, are given to the graphic designers and web programmers who will use them as their blueprint as they develop the website or software.

What this means to you is the development costs are reduced substantially because the programmers are allowed to do what they do best: write the code.

Next Phase: Testing and Optimization