Eight Steps to Building Solid Info Architecture

The term "information architecture" originated in 1970 with Xerox, when PARC research lab was tasked with the mission to create "the architecture of information."

Twenty plus years later, accompanying the Web boom in the 1990’s, a book called "Information Architecture for the World Wide Web" was published, propelling a demand for experts in the field.

In a nutshell, information architecture is user-centered design; a philosophy of optimizing an interface based on how users can, want, or need to use it.

Here are eight information architecture best practices you can use to make your Web site more optimized for your users.

1. Define your audience. A good exercise is to create fictional personas of your users. This allows you to put yourself in their shoes as you make feature, design, and content decisions.

2. Rank your users’ needs by importance. Make a broad list of your users’ needs, then narrow it down to the top three. If this is a difficult exercise, then set a fake budget and allocate funds across all of the needs to come up with a prioritized list.

3. Create a list of all features, information, and functions you want on your site. Combine business and user goals to come up with a cohesive set of site content and functionality.

In our next blog, we'll outline steps 4-8.