Modified 12/2616/2024
In this article:
- What is Information Architecture?
- Methods for organizing information
- How to utilize visual elements
- Examples
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To do this method, label each card with its own piece of information you want included on the website. Then, group them based on which category they fall under. For example, if one of your categories is an “About” page for your organization, the cards you may sort under it could be “History,” “Mission,” and “Goals.” Below is an example of a digital version of this, using information from theIKEA website.
If you still feel unsure about the results of your card sorting, recruit a few willing volunteers to go through this process and compare the results. That way, you havean outside perspective on how intuitive your site’s navigation is.
Information Flow
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Charts
Another method of laying out the content of a website is to create an information flow treechart. This helps break down content into categories while also showing the paths a user might take. Using the information as the example of card sorting, shown below is an information flow tree chart example of the IKEA website. Though it looks similar, information flow trees charts are better at representing a hierarchy of information, as well as mapping how users can get from one page to another.
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The Craigslist home page is an example of bad IA. The lack of images and white space cause a blur effect on the page.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. There are dozens of links on just one page alone that gives a user too many options to look through all at once, and too many choices can be overwhelming. It'sa good idea to limit the number of things to look at on a screen, like seen in the examples of good IA above.
Information architecture involves a balance between how much information is shown immediately and how much needs a little bit more navigatingto be found. You don’t want to put all the information on your site on one page (see the above example), but you also don’t want to hide your information in endless layers of subcategories. Try putting yourself into the shoes of a potential user of your site and figure out the most intuitive way to go about organizing it.