Information Architecture
11 December 2021
Information Architecture (IA) ensures that your site visitors can quickly and easily find what they need or want. Great IA means the user has a great experience on your site - lots of flow and no delay.
Individual visitors have different needs, desires and perceptions. IA helps to direct those diverse people to the information on your site they want.
A real-world example might be your friends. All your friends might like to go to the movies, but a subset may always be up for a music festival, while others prefer mountain biking.
If you want to go ice skating, your mind orders which friend will most likely go ice skating with you. IA is an internal order that caters to your website visitors' different information needs and preferences.
There are four core elements to consider when constructing your site's IA.
- Organisation: Categorising your information - what page and where on the page should content sit?
- Labelling: Representing information so your visitors can quickly find what they need - having headings, captions, and links in the right places
- Navigation: Assisting people to browse information
- Search: Allowing users to find the exact information they want quickly
Google Search → IA → Google Impression → "Click" → Landing page → IA → Visitor Data.
IA decisions also need to consider the audience you want to serve. Are you trying to reach businesses, homeowners, Millenials or any of Gen X, Y, Z?
Your website should be answering your clients' questions directly or providing a path to the answer.
There are many resources, including thinkwithgoogle.com, where you can research the latest online trends of your target market segment. You can also make more confident decisions on your subject matter and placement with visitor data.
There is no one-size-fits-all solution out there. Hence why TrikeWeb makes Revision Cycles easy, enabling you to look at how well your IA and your content are working for you and tweak as needed. Check the Revision Cycle blog page.
