Co-presented with Greg Harron, UX Strategist at Centerline Digital (@GregHarron).
Determining your site’s information architecture is a highly political exercise. Everyone from product managers to the executive team has an idea about what’s most important, and how it should be organized on the site. But while determining your IA by committee might make everyone in your company happy (or at least keep them quiet), it often leaves users out of the picture. Learn how to combine exercises from user experience and content strategy to build an information architecture (anything from sitemaps to metadata structures) that starts and ends with your user’s voice.”
3. IA is not
just your
sitemap
#IAatDMFB image source: http://bit.ly/1JFL0MU
4. IA is not
just your
content
model
#IAatDMFB image source: http://bit.ly/1JFL0MU
5. IA is not
just your
taxonomy
#IAatDMFB image source: http://bit.ly/1JFL0MU
6. IA is not
just your
metadata
#IAatDMFB image source: http://bit.ly/1JFL0MU
7. IA is not
just your
tagging
structure
#IAatDMFB image source: http://bit.ly/1JFL0MU
8. IA is not
just your
product
hierarchy
#IAatDMFB image source: http://bit.ly/1JFL0MU
9. “On the web, IA is structured information
that contributes to the relationship of
meaning between a website and the
people who use it.
HERE’S OUR DEFINITION
”#IAatDMFB @copydev
10. On the web, IA is structured information
that contributes to the relationship of
meaning between a website and the
people who use it.
(This is a two-way relationship)
“
”
HERE’S OUR DEFINITION
#IAatDMFB
11. (Actually… three)
On the web, IA is structured information
that contributes to the relationship of
meaning between a website and the
people and programs that use it.
“
”
HERE’S OUR DEFINITION
#IAatDMFB
12. Information architecture is about helping
people understand their surroundings and
find what they're looking for—in the real
world as well as online.
— The IA Institute
http://bit.ly/1EE08pT
“
”
BUT OTHER PEOPLE SAY SMART STUFF, TOO…
#IAatDMFB
23. First rule:
Let your users make the
important decisions.
image source: http://bit.ly/1AWWLcW
#IAatDMFB
24. Second rule:
To create change, you have to look
for new sources of information.
#IAatDMFB image source: http://bit.ly/1zZP9eF
25. Interaction
How do we get raw user
information?
Observation
In the lab In the wild
image source: http://bit.ly/1L0qZlhimage source: https://flic.kr/p/doVSMj#IAatDMFB
37. What are we looking for?
!
!
!
!
Consistency with user expectations!
• natural groupings based on user mindset
• clear, distinct meaning
• mental models of how things relate to one another
ambiguities
terminology usage/understanding
concept overlap
#IAatDMFB
38. #IAatDMFB
Open and/or closed
!
OPEN = what things go together?
CLOSED = test your labels
HYBRID = test labels, allow user to customize
!
Ideally, Open THEN Closed
!
!
!
42. #IAatDMFB
Closed/Hybrid Card Sort
Hybrid Card Sorting
exercise to identify
common groupings and
understand user mental
models for information
architecture.Users sort cards to predefined
categories.
!
With Hybrid version, users also
have option to create new
categories if they don’t see a
true fit.
43. For best results…
Mash up your methods
!
!
#IAatDMFB
• open vs closed
• physical vs digital
• moderated vs unmoderated
!
• compare user and business stakeholder
results
44. Practical stuff
!
1.30-40 cards is optimal, 50-60 max
2.Randomize card order (and categories if doing closed sort)
3.Vary wording and terminology on cards
4.Set time/workload expectations with participants up front
5.Encourage the participant to think aloud
6.Ask follow-up questions
45. #IAatDMFB
Analyze results
-Similarity - which cards were grouped together most commonly
-Categorization - how often did cards get grouped to the same category
-Qualitative review of notes and observations
47. Toolkit #1
Toolkit #2
Similarity Matrix
#IAatDMFB
Shows % of
participants that
grouped pairs of cards
together - Highlights
common pairings/
clusters.
48. Let the data do the talking
#IAatDMFB
image source: http://bit.ly/1K6gLSQ
49. Plenty o’ fish
Lots of online tool options out there.
OptimalSort
UserZoom
UsabilityTools
ConceptCodify
SimpleCardSort
xSort
and more…
#IAatDMFB