Information Architecture (IA)
Within seconds of landing on a digital app or site, people determine pathways into areas of interest. Right IA helps balance information density, navigation menu, content discovery, and user flows by removing clutter and convoluted information finding patterns.
Fresh and new content is key to the survival of any digital experience. But in the race to keep content relevant applications start growing organically making them confusing. While search helps with discovering predetermined targets, information architecture (IA) helps unspecified exploration. A good IA creates serendipitous moments while people go through a digital journey that impacts business KPIs.
It’s not just navigation
While the navigation menu is a core component of information architecture, we also look at page density, filters, search patterns, sort functions, and selectors that help visitors narrow down or locate what they are looking for in the most effectively.
Use your customers’ mental model
Taxonomy is often determined by in-house experts who are not attuned to how the target audience thinks. Internal view of an organization is often presented in the IA that leaves people guessing into what a category or page header may be rather than being certain of what the destination of the click or tap is.
Remove cognitive dissonance
Cognitive dissonance in digital applications occurs when the user thinks of an outcome, but the action delivers something else. When internal business objectives are reframed the way people are thinking about a topic then we can create an intuitive application with a win-win situation.
Increase in mobile conversions after IA was optimized for mobile site
More people discovered products in the first attempt after an IA fix
Increase in employee awareness after an intranet IA redesign
Increase in business metrics after an IA was re-classified
Information Architecture design process
Current state mapping & research planning
Current state mapping & research planning Capture existing metrics, nomenclature, feedback and IA. Create a plan to test IA with participants. Determine taxonomy deviation based on existing standards if any.
Card Sorting
Conduct research to find items in the existing system, ask to organize based on their grouping mechanism, and test a new IA to validate initial findings.
Analysis and Report
A top-line report will highlight big areas to re-classify based on participant data. Get suggestions to fix and optimize the responsive layout or mobile apps.
We are obsessed with organizing
Information Scent
We recommend labels that will lead our users to the information like a mouse finding cheese in a maze. Removing guesswork and making intuition work is science.
Information Hierarchy
People inherently categorize to make sense of complex information. With a clear hierarchy, people can know how topical or deep they need to go.
Information Density
Most controversial discussions in the UX industry are making it above the fold. Cognitive load and information density are inversely proportional, but we can help you find the balance.
Our IA tools for every use-case
Card Sorting (Tree Testing)
Content inventory examination
Taxonomy development and labeling system
Navigation menu design exploration
Usage priority for ordering
