Information Architecture
Information architecture is defined by the Information Architecture Institute, founded 2002, as
- The structural design of shared information environments.
- The art and science of organising and labelling web sites, intranets, online communities and software to support findability and usability.
- An emerging community of practice focused on bringing principles of design and architecture to the digital landscape.
So from our point of view when designing a client web site, information architecture means the identifying, organising and structuring of the web site content in such a way as to achieve effective site navigation and usability.
In simple terms, this might mean structuring web site content so that a primary content area with a generic name such as 'services' and which contains 10 sub-sections is restructured into several primary content areas with more meaningful names and with fewer sub-sections in each.
This clarifies the navigation of the site, thereby improving the site usability, possibly reduces the number of click-throughs a site visitor has to make to find content and overall improves the user-experience.
Information Architecture becomes a more critical issue when the site being developed is substantial in size. By its very nature, a site containing 10 pages will require less content structuring compared to a site with 1,000 pages.
This is even more true when structuring a site that is likely to continue growing in content scope. Properly planned information architecture will consider future content requirements and will allow the site to grow in scope without a complete site restructuring being required.
At clickstream, we consider effective information architecture to be the cornerstone of all our web site design projects. If effective site navigation and usability are key deliverables of your project and if building a sustainable site is a primary requirement, then contact clickstream web design today.