By Donna Spencer
freelance information architect

Information architecture relates to all the things in a proect concerning how content is grouped and organized, how it is labeled, and how people navigate around it. For a website it is usually about making groups of content and designing navigational methods so people can find the right information for them. For a web application it is about describing the attributes of the content, designing how to display information, workflows and navigation.

Information architecture works with a lot of other disciplines; it needs user research to understand the people who are using the outcome and to build it well. Many people work on the subject, and you don’t always need a specialized information architect on a project. However, you do need to have someone who has experience in grouping, organizing, labeling and designing the navigation. A main focus of information architecture is to make sure people can get to information in a way that makes sense to them and make it usable. For something like a company website, that may mean that the right clients don’t find out what they need from you and don’t hire you. For an e-commerce site, people may not buy a product, or may buy the wrong product for them. For a university, it may mean that students enroll in the wrong classes or don’t get forms in by the due date. There may be many missed opportunities that you as the site owner don’t even know about.

On February 9th I’ll take you through these and other subjects within information architecture, user interface and trends for the next years to come. Welcome to my workshop!