1. Information Architecture
Ross Philip – Principal UX Consultant
(Breakfast Edition)

2. Good Morning…

3. What we will cover…
• What is Information Architecture?
• Core Tools & Techniques
• Applying these approaches
• Related Approaches/Methods

4. Information Architecture
• Definition – “The art and science of
organizing and labelling information spaces
(including web sites, intranets, mobile apps,
and software) to support findability and
usability.”
• Categorisation – the grouping / clumping of
content
• Labelling – how you label those categories
• Navigation – providing users with a set of
paths to help them find way through site, i.e.
cross-linking to allow users to easily find
information based on their own mental model
• Search – allow the entry of user-defined
query and present matching results, with
special results highlighted

5. IA: Where Does Fit in the Design Process?
Iterative process
Discovery
Definition/Conceptual
Design
IA Design
Visual Design
Handoff-Implementation
Integrated with content
development, interaction
design, graphic design, usability
The Elements of User Experience,
Jesse James Garrett, http://jjg.net

6. Concept/Plan
• Contextual Analysis
• User Profiling/Persona
development
• User Needs Analysis
• IA Analysis
Design
• Wireframing
• Prototyping
• Co-Design Workshops
• Competitive Design
Evaluate
• Usability Testing
• Expert Evaluation
• Eye-tracking
• Accessibility Audits
Live Support
• Customer Surveys
• Analytics
• A/B Testing
• Multi-variate Testing
A User-Centred Design (UCD) process

7. IA & Findability
• The ‘backbone’ of a website
• Critical for a good user experience
• Navigation labels can be seen as stepping
stones
 Provide ‘Scent of Information’
• Clear ‘scent’ gives users continued confidence
• If not, they either search, give up, or assume
the information is not there…
Without a clearly labelled and meaningful IA, much of the work
on the presentation and aesthetics will be unsuccessful

8. How Users Look for Information 1
• Finding known items e.g. What is/who was…
 Supported by: Search/A –Z
• Exploring – “It’s kind of like this…”
 Supported by: Concise and meaningful trigger words/related links
• Refining and narrowing – “I want a recipe with smoked
salmon in it…”
 Supported by: Filters/Faceted Navigation
• Comparing
 Need a good understanding of what criteria are important and
decision making process – tipping point

9. How Users Look for Information 2
• The broad picture
 Support: High level overviews
• In detail
 Broad overview and then increasing detail – layers of information
• Discovering unknown things… “the unknown unknowns”
 Things you didn’t know existed, but are interested in
 Related to exploration, research and getting the broader picture
 Serendipitous finding…
 “You want X but need Y” or “You want X but need X, Y, Z and A, B and C too”
 Support: Overviews, Related Links, Effective Trigger words/A-Z

10. Benefits
• Reduced search times/increased task success
• Reduced frustration and increased customer satisfaction
• Decreased maintenance costs and longer website lifespan
• Better alignment between your business goals and website
• Fewer calls to customer service
• Better search engine performance
• Improved brand value, loyalty and repeat business
• Enhanced competitive position

11. What we will cover…
• What is Information Architecture?
• Core Tools & Techniques
• Applying these approaches
• Related Approaches/Methods

12. Core Tools & Techniques
• Card Sorting
 Bottom Up
 Classification and similarity/proximity
 Open vs. Closed
 Exploratory
• Category Testing (Tree Testing)
 Top Down
 Browsing and recognition
 More representative of users looking for information
 Validation
• Expert Methods
 Heuristic Evaluation

13. #1 Card Sorting - Offline
Syncaps/Excel Spreadsheets
Best use: Best approach if time and budget allow (Formative)
Advantages: Thorough, Detailed, Qualitative Feedback, Moderated
Disadvantages: Cost, Time (Collection and Analysis)
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Caution - No Instant IA!

14. #2 – Card Sorting - Online
Websort/Optimal Sort/UserZoom
Best use: Smaller Studies, Limited time and Budget, Back up Offline Studies.
Advantages: Fast, cheap, online access, conducted remotely.
Disadvantages: limited screen space, understanding process, no verbal
feedback

15. Categorisation Exercise Proof
1. Select a specific item / destination
2. Offer set of categories where it may be located
3. Record success / failure in placing the item
4. Reasons for failure - Item name, group label/structure?
Can be tested in a number of ways:
- Online – Naviewapp
- Offline – Category Testing or through basic wireframes
Level1
Level2
Level3
Level4




16. #3 Tree/Category Testing - Offline
Best use: Best Approach if time and budget allow (Validation)
Advantages: Detailed Analysis for each level, Qualitative Feedback.
Disadvantages: Cost, Time (Set-up and Data Collection).

17. #4 Tree/Category Testing - Online
NaviewApp/Tree Jack/UserZoom
Best use: Quick testing with many users online (Best as backup to Offline).
Advantages: Fast, relatively cheap, online access, conducted remotely.
Disadvantages: Software restrictions, understanding process, no verbal
feedback.

18. #5 Heuristic Evaluations
Best use: Limited time and budget
Advantages: Fast, relatively cheap, expert method, useful for competitive
studies
Disadvantages: No user feedback

19. IA Best Practice Principles – Some Heuristics
• Collocation | Is similar content placed together? Is it easy for users to understand
how different areas are related?
• Differentiation | Is different content placed apart? Do the navigation labels
clearly indicate those differences?
• Information scent | Are the labels and headings sufficiently descriptive for
users– “What is this/Am I going in the right direction”?
• Scope | Can the user understand the breadth and depth of content on a topic? Can
users get a sense of how long their search for information may take?
• Multiple access paths | Users think about content in different ways – does
the IA support these different routes to the same content/related content?
• Appropriate structure | Is the organising principle of the site obvious and
useful ? Does it match user’s mental models? Does it support differences in information
seeking behaviours?

20. What we will cover…
• What is Information Architecture?
• Core Tools & Techniques
• Applying these approaches
• Related Approaches/Methods

21. The (Ideal) IA Design Process
User Research
Identify Users
Key User Journeys
User Needs
1 - Card Sorting
Offline Card Sort
Online Card Sort
3 - Category Testing
Validate IA
Key User Journeys
Interim IA
2 - IA Workshop
Report & Discuss Card Sort
Results & Interim IA
Alignment with content and
domain experts
Consolidated Interim
IA
Validated IA
Refined Labels &
Grouping
Wireframing
Wireframes illustrating IA
and key journeys

22. The Problem of Large Sites 1
• How to carry out analysis?
 Potential Challenges
• Lots of content (000’s of lines/items)
• Deep hierarchies
• Constraints
 Card Sort: 100 Cards in an hour/Less Offline
 Category Testing: 20-25 Topics in 30 mins.
 Project Time and Budget

23. The Problem of Large Sites 2
• Solutions
 Limit Depth e.g. L1-L3
 Limit Scope: Exclude lower priority areas and/or focus on
areas supporting user journeys
 Priority Content and known problem areas
 Multiple Card Sorts – Lower Levels First
 Multiple user groups? Focus on content for each group
plus some general – overlap
• Topics selected should ideally be 50-60% of the
content at the levels selected for analysis
 Increasing chance of spurious or invalid results if less.

24. What we will cover…
• What is Information Architecture?
• Core Tools & Techniques
• Applying these approaches
• Related Approaches/Methods

25. Some Related Concepts/Methods
• Content Inventory/Audit
• Controlled Vocabularies
• Faceted Navigation
 Content Inventory/Audit
 Essential groundwork
 Can be significant
 Depending on requirements best carried out by client

26. Preferred
term
Employment
law
Narrower Terms
Disability discrimination
laws, dismissal & notice
periods, employee
rights, working hours, equal
opportunities …
Broader term
Employing
people
Variant term
Employment
legislation
Variant
term
Work
regulations
Hierarchical
Hierarchical
EquivalenceEquivalence
Related
term
Wage Board
Related
term
Industrial
tribunals
Associative Associative
Controlled Vocabulary / Thesaurus
Communications industries
UF: Video recording industry
UF: Printing industry
UF: Publishing industry
UF: Sound recording industry
UF: Telecommunications industry
BT: Business sectors
RT: Music
RT: Advertising
RT: Media and the press
RT: Visual arts
RT: e-Commerce
RT: Films and film making
RT: Electronics industry
RT: Information and communication
technology
RT: Internet
RT: Postal services
RT: Telephone services
RT: Printing and copying services
From IPSV
UF = Used For
BT = Broader Term
RT = Related Term
NT = Narrower Term

27. Faceted Navigation/Search 1
• Traditionally two search models
 Navigational - based on hierarchical taxonomy
 Direct search
• Faceted Search/Navigation
 Elements classified on multiple dimensions
 Access using multiple filters
 Filter order flexible – not pre-determined

28. Faceted Navigation/Search 2
• Info sought has multiple different dimensions
 Book – Author, Subject, Publisher
 Now Common in Online Shops
• Simple Classifications
 Ranganathan’s Colon: 5 facets – Personality, Matter,
Energy, Space & Time
 Bliss Bibliographic: 13 Facets – including Entity, Property,
Material, Process, Operation, Product

29. Faceted IA Examples - Comet

30. Faceted IA Examples – E-bay

31. Faceted IA Examples – Top Gear Car Chooser

32. How to make a Faceted IA – Quick Overview
• Domain Sampling - Collect a representative sample of all
entities e.g. Books.
• Entity Listing – Break down descriptions, sentences and
phrases into basic concepts.
• Facet Creation – Examine concepts and see what high level
categories appear across all entities e.g. Publishing Date,
Author, Publisher etc.
• Facet Arrangement – What is order (terms within facets)?
Test and decide CV.
• Primary Facet – Select.
• Revise, Test & Maintain – Terminology changes/New
terminology/Research.

33. Some Useful Resources
Web Resources:
• IA Institute - http://iainstitute.org/
• Boxes & arrows - http://www.boxesandarrows.com/
• Interaction Design Association - IXDA - http://www.ixda.org/

34. Eye tracking
Questions?

35. Ross Philip
Principal User Experience Consultant
User Vision
55 North Castle Street
Edinburgh
EH2 3QA
T: 0131 225 0853
E: ross@uservision.co.uk
W: www.uservision.co.uk
Thank You