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To see how these ideas come together in practice, here is an example of good IA from the Adidas home page (see figure 1). The home page of the site acts as a welcome, giving the user any big updates or new releases that have come out. And, at the top of the page, the navigation is separated into broad categories which show more content when hovered over. Each category is then expanded upon, giving the user more options to narrow their search.has categories within, as a way to better narrow down a user's search.
Below is an example of these categories in action. If a user was looking for men’s shoes used for playing soccer, they would hover over “MEN,” go to “SHOES,” and then click on “SOCCER” (see figure 2). If the user cannot find what they need using these categories, the search bar is always at the top right no matter where the user is on the website.
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A poorly organized site might prevent people from visiting it again, especially if they never end up finding the information that they need. If you put too much content on a page, how do users know where to look? One important principle of user experience is the principle of choices, which states that there should be a limited number of options available at any given time to prevent a user from wasting their time or becoming confused.
The Craigslist home page (see figure 3) is an example of bad IA. While there is quite a bit of information provided and a useful search bar, that is about all that there is. The lack of images and white space cause a blur effect on the page. Creating a larger page with spaced out information may be more effective here. If you're not familiar with the site, you may have to scan the entire page and read all of the links in order to find what you are looking for. This voice against the principle of choices, because there are dozens of links on just one page alone that gives a user too many options to look through all at once.
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