2learn

Information Architecture

IA

What it is

Information architecture organises and labels content so people can find it. It covers the names you give things, the hierarchy you arrange them in, the navigation that exposes that hierarchy, and the tests that check whether anyone can actually find anything. It is decided before layout and after research.

Why it matters

People arrive with a mental model built somewhere else — a previous product, a paper process, a colleague’s description — and search for things using words they already know. If the labels, the grouping and the paths do not match that model, the content is effectively missing even though it exists. IA is also the expensive kind of mistake: fixing a label is a text change, but re-organising a structure after launch breaks links, analytics and habits, and costs an order of magnitude more.

In this track

  1. Labelling (03-design-ux/09-information-architecture/01-labelling) — choosing the words that appear in navigation, headings and links.
  2. Hierarchy and navigation (03-design-ux/09-information-architecture/02-hierarchy-and-navigation) — grouping content and exposing the groups so the path is guessable.
  3. Findability testing (03-design-ux/09-information-architecture/03-findability-testing) — checking with real people that the structure works before it is built.
  4. The hand-off to layout (03-design-ux/09-information-architecture/04-the-hand-off-to-layout) — turning the structure into page skeletons the visual work can build on.

Prerequisites

None.

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