Information Architecture
(for the rest of us!)
Intro « 1 » 2 3 4 5
Chapter 1
Small businesses and nonprofits need cool web sites, too!
Understanding the importance of IA in the development of a professional web site is a critical step. And a step that can be taken even by smaller organizations. The purpose of this document is to show you how you can develop your web site blueprint, or at least the majority of it, on your own before hiring professionals.
If you have already brought in a professional, reading this document will prepare you for the steps that will need to be taken to build a good web site. Understanding and following this procedure will also save a lot of time, money and frustration.
I will approach this from the perspective of building a design document that will guide your web designer/developer in laying out the navigation and organization of your site. I'll also approach it from the perspective of a smaller organization that is not focused on a highly interactive web site or a major e-commerce site.
If, at some point later, the site needs to incorporate more sophisticated interactivity, database enablement or e-commerce, a good architecture will provide a scalable basis for further development.
1. Define the goal of the site
"That's obvious," you say. "Ha," says I. Take another look out there on the web. How many really good sites do you come across that make finding what you're looking for easy and intuitive?
Or, how many sites do you come across that leave you dazed and confused from the moment you hit the home page? Not only was there little attention paid to IA, you might wonder if anyone ever bothered to define the site's raison d'etre.
Defining the goal of the site early on will also get everyone in the organization on the same track in regard to participating in content development and stem endless back and forth discussions about what ought or ought not to be on the site.
This "goal definition" process can be approached in a formal manner with meetings, agenda, questionnaires and all the "right" people. It can also be accomplished in a more informal and less time-intensive manner. A note pad and one-on-one "water cooler meetings" can be part of a rapid development method, especially in organizations or small businesses where less than ten people are involved. If there is a Board of Directors for the organization, you will have to determine whether their input and/or "buy-in" is required. To answer that question, simply ask yourself, "can the Board or anyone on the Board cause us to redo everything later?" If the answer to that question is "yes," you'd better get them involved now, even if it requires meetings!
1a. Find the key players
If you're "working the crowd" right in establishing the goal of your site, you will quickly discover who the important people are that you'll want involved in the IA design process.
Usually the CEO, Executive Director, owner, President or other resident big wig is the obvious choice of person to direct this process. That is also usually the wrong person to have drive the process. Certainly you will need their input, participation and buy-in, but there may well be someone else in the ranks that understands project management and has the time to implement it.
By the way, don't overlook the junior staff member who spends large amounts of time "surfing" the net. Their input can be quite valuable to your team.
1b. Ask the right questions
Once you have your team of key players, you need to determine the site's goal or goals. Here is a list of basic questions:
1. What is the mission or purpose of the organization?
This is the most important question to get an answer to. If business collateral (printed materials, brochures, strategic marketing and planning documents, etc.) has already been established, you may have the information you need already. Your collateral may also contain valuable information that is not explicitly mentioned in the mission statement or business plan.
2. What are the short- and long-term goals of the site?
Amazing but true: the knee-jerk approach to site design is to design something quickly, throwing in whatever bells and whistles the project manager or CEO considers "cool." This is usually an effort to take care of the immediate and usually desperate need to get online. An eye to the future is a "must" at this early stage in order to avoid a costly redesign and redevelopment of the entire site. A good IA will scale to a larger, more complicated development plan later on, even if the "look and feel" changes.
3. Who are the intended audiences of the site?
This is the most often overlooked question in site design, and the single largest cause of web site disasters. You must build your site for your intended audience(s), not for your web designer's portfolio, your CEO's résumé, or for your Board of Directors' vanity page. If your audience does not feel the site is catering to them, all the rest is just fluff for the sake of the relatives.
4. What will people come to the site for?
"Build it and they will come." Why? What will they come for? What needs do they have that you can provide a "fix" for? Will they be able to find it on your site? Will they want to return for it again?
Be prepared to witness the answers to these questions change as going "live online" gets nearer. It happens!
Also, the initial excitement of getting a web site can cause an exuberance of new ideas and thoughts on changing the mission, the business model and/or the site design. I like to call this "design du jour." It may take a little time for this phenomenon to simmer down, and without a design document, design du jour will rule.
A way of handling and managing this process is to gather answers to these questions from various members of the team in written form and then amalgamating them. At this point, post the results and begin to ask if these answers work.
If consensus can't be built, you will have to establish who will be the final decision-maker and how that decision will be made.
2. Write down the answers
Knowing the right questions is important, but getting answers is their purpose. Get answers from as many people in the organization as you can.
A written questionnaire is very useful. Collect them, or talk to everybody in person and write their answers down. Be sure and write them all down, however silly, odd or mundane some may seem. You never know where the next great idea will come from.
3. Create order from chaos
Set all of the answers relating to audiences aside for later and rephrase the rest as goals. Put them into a list and if you have a long list, make categories of goals.
Now go back to the same people that gave you answers earlier and ask them to rank these goals by importance. If you have categories, rank them by importance as well, and take suggestions for category names.
Next build a master list of your site's goals by filtering and combining all of the rankings. Here is where some judgment may be necessary. While you will want to weight the opinions of the more important, higher ranking people in the organization, don't take too lightly the opinions of that web-savvy junior staff member.
When you're finished you will have a clear set of goals for your site. If necessary, you may need to run this list by the group for agreement and/or consensus, or you may just need to summarize the list and post it for all to see.
4. Information Architecture Design Document, Chapter 1
Once you're sure of this list of goals, you've established why your site should be built. Now, start your IA Design Document with Goals as chapter 1.
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