What is Information Architecture?
Information Architecture (IA) is the pursuit of arranging the parts of something so it is understood. This practice is everywhere, apps, the physical space we occupy, printed materials, and websites.
Good IA helps people find what they’re looking for—regardless of where they are.
In working on a website, we start with IA to understand your organization, content, and goals. That IA work becomes a reference tool as we work through content strategy and, ultimately, the entire user interface (UI) design.
The IA isn’t rigid—it serves as both a reference and a living document. As we move through the process of building a website, we’ll learn things together. We’ll test the IA against this new knowledge—and, if need be, we’ll adapt the IA document as we proceed.
Just for illustration purposes, here’s how we might present an IA to a client.
A sample IA for a simple website.
This type of abstracted dialog about the goals a website aims to accomplish in the context of the available content gives us space to understand and explore. For example, is there a case for deeper data modeling? What features are best suited for that specific kind of content? How can we organize the content to leverage it throughout the site?
IA is one of the early steps we take in building a website because it gives us a solid foundation for the rest of the work. Have a project coming up? We’d love to chat.
