Information Architecture and Navigation Design

You need help organizing your website so it’s intuitive...

If a user can’t find it, it doesn’t exist. It really boils down to that. The information and functionality you offer on your site must be organized in a way that makes it easy to find – easy to find on a particular page and easy to find by navigating from one page to another. If a user can’t intuitively navigate your website, they are likely to get frustrated and look for another website that will help them accomplish their goal.

Information architecture is the term used to describe the structure of a system, i.e, the way information is grouped, the navigation methods, and terminology used within the system. The term was first coined in 1975 by Richard Saul Wurman, long before Tim Berners-Lee’s proposal in 1989, which is considered the start of the World Wide Web. In 1989 Berners-Lee initially referred to a mesh of information connected by relationships using hypertext.

Twenty years ago Berners-Lee recognized the importance of being able to navigate through the mesh of information. It’s even more important and challenging now as website content grows to serve the needs of diverse target visitors, like prospects, customers, constituents, recruits, and employees.

It’s also important, as Joe Rotella puts it, to remember “The web is not a tree.” A true mesh or web of information facilitates different user strategies for finding information without forcing users to navigate up and down an artificial hierarchical navigation model. In a web of information, the Home Page is just one likely entry point. Users may also enter your website through other pages that were the result of an internet search or a destination (i.e., landing page) promoted in a targeted marketing campaign. Assuming every website has a hierarchical structure with a single root or entry point may not be the most intuitive organization from a user’s perspective.

Effective information architecture comes from understanding your organization’s objectives and constraints, the content and functionality that will be presented on the website, and the requirements of your target audience.

We develop the information architecture of the site based on OOGITUs – Objects of Greatest Interest to Users. We conduct an object-oriented analysis, from a user’s perspective, of the information that will appear on the website. In this case, the objects are nouns or “things” we hear the most often during the requirements gathering process. Some typical OOGITUs for different types of organizations might be:

In addition to the list of OOGITUs, we listen carefully for the relationships between the OOGITUs. For example, from a tourist’s perspective, an attraction, shop, restaurant, hotel, or event is located in a neighborhood. By understanding both the OOGITUs and the relationships between them, we can design page layouts to facilitate navigation between the objects.

In the tourism example, we know it’s important for a given neighborhood page to intuitively present or link to the attractions, shops, restaurants, hotels, and events that are located in that neighborhood. The related links, in context with the content on the page, helps guide a user from a specific item (e.g., a neighborhood) to other items they might be interested in (e.g., attractions in that neighborhood). Similarly, a given attraction can provide links to events taking place near that attraction and the neighborhood where the attraction is located.

The OOGITUs and their relationships provide many navigation elements on every page. Implemented across the site, the pages become richly interconnected and form a mesh or web of information. The primary OOGITUs are grouped to form the top level or main navigation for the site, providing multiple entry points to content that is important to your users.

• We work with you and your users, following a user centered design approach, to understand what information is important to them.
• We analyze the information to determine the OOGITUs (Objects of Greatest Interest to Users) and the relationships between them.
• The OOGITUs and their relationships are used to create page wireframes with rich connections, creating a web of information.
• The primary OOGITUs are grouped to create the main navigation for the website.
• As a best practice, the wireframes, navigation, and labels are verified with users through usability testing sessions.
• The final designs can then be “painted” with your visual design and form the overall look and feel of your site.