2. information
architecture
Architecture's a big word, and the bricks-and-mortar guys don't
like the way the web's co-opted it. But the repurposing is justified, because
the principles of architecture aren't limited to plaster and plumbing.
That principle is organising structure.
An organising structure supports the
thing you're trying to create. Without it the thing you create won't feel
like a unified whole - it'll be a mishmash of disconnected
globs. The only things that work without architecture are mazes. (Where a
lack of architecture is the whole idea.)
The information architecture of a textbook is one page long:
the table of contents. The architecture of a dictionary is just three words:
'A to Z'. The architecture of the human body, by contrast, takes up 3GB:
three billion DNA base pairs describing how 30,000 different proteins
develop in sequence. And the architecture of a big website or database application
can reach a thousand crosslinked pages of information. To get it right, you
need to look at two areas: organising principles and navigation design.
The organising principles are driven by user
needs. (If it looks like your org chart, it's wrong.) Those needs will give
rise to a finite number of information types, which you can organise into page
types. Grouping and ordering each page
type into however many page instances you need (according
to user needs) gives you your organising principles.
In contrast to the
networked web, they're usually hierarchical. (And often wall-sized, sketched
on huge charts of stuck-together A3 with ten colours of marker. It is definitely
one of the fun parts.)
The navigation design defines how
your user gets around your site or app: it's the links. Not all links are
created equal. Links to top-of-section pages (primary navigation) differ
from links between pages of the same type, as do links leading backwards
and forward (breadcrumb trails) or links to other sites. And of course it
must be this structure that drives
user experience design,
not the graphic designer's 'kewl' ideas.
(With today's database-driven web apps, sets of links aren't static:
the subset on each page type changes according to what else is on the page.
That's why navigation design is about more than sketching the lines between
boxes. But it's fun, too.)
And that's information architecture. Not graphic design or copywriting;
site design, not page design. When you've decided what your users need, IA
is the framework for delivering it to them. Next: content
strategy.