Information architecture and UX are closely related. A good user experience is built upon the foundation of solid information architecture. Although UX covers much more than just information architecture, it is a vital step in a UX design process. Information architecture is responsible for content organization and structuring of digital products. This influences the navigation experience of users and contributes significantly to their first impression of a digital product.
What is Information Architecture?
Information architecture is the process of structuring and representing an entity into different parts with the aim to make it easily understandable. Information architecture can be applied to both physical and digital spaces. In our discussion related to UX design, we talk about digital space and the entity can be mobile apps, web apps, websites, and so on.
To do the groundwork for creating good information architecture, one must consider two aspects – users’ context and users’ goals.
Context refers to the circumstances in which users will be interacting with the content. This includes asking questions such as when will the user be engaging with the content, where will they be, and how will they be interacting. Goals refer to what the users plan to accomplish by interacting with the content. Here, the questions to be addressed are who are the users, what are their expectations, what values are they expecting and how they will be using the content.
Getting a good understanding of these two aspects will help to create a good information architecture.
The Structure of Information Architecture
In a UI UX design company, creating an information architecture is the responsibility of information architects. They form a structure for the same by combining four systems – organization system, labelling system, search system, and navigation system.
Organization system: This deals with how information is categorized. Organization can be done in various ways, such as hierarchical, sequential, etc. The choice depends on the type of project.
Labelling system: This deals with how information is represented in the digital platform. For each category, what labels are used to tell users about the information contained in it. Here, aspects such as ease of understanding, clarity, short and crisp words, etc. play a major role.
Search system: This deals with how users access information. The main components in a search system are a search engine, filtering and sorting options. The search system also deals with the representation of search results, which can take different approaches depending on the project such as based on popularity, personalized results, based on the chronological order, etc.
Navigation system: This deals with how users move through digital products. Components involved in the navigation system include the primary navigation unit, sub-navigation units, breadcrumbs, etc.
To create this structure, information architects will need to conduct extensive user research. It's important for them to understand the user, their needs, and the way they access information in order to build a structure that can cater to the target users and satisfy them.
Conclusion
The role of information architecture in user experience is unavoidable, especially in digital platforms that have a multitude of screens/pages. Clear structuring, organization, and labelling are key for such platforms to be simple and usable. Often, there is confusion when it comes to information architecture vs sitemap. Many believe both are the same, but they are actually different. Sitemaps are visual representations of information architecture. A good navigation design must cover information architecture, sitemap, user flow, and user journey maps. This forms the cornerstone of a great user experience.
