Skip to content
UX Atlas
Research methodCraft conventionAdvanced

Information Architecture

Organising, labelling and structuring content so people can find it, which determines navigation rather than following from it.

Definition

Information architecture is the structural design of shared information environments. It covers organisation schemes, labelling systems, navigation and search, and it is the layer beneath every findability problem.

Craft convention. True because the industry converged on it. Breaking it costs familiarity, not correctness.

On this page
  1. Definition
  2. Organisation schemes
  3. Principles that hold up
  4. Sources
  5. Continue from here

Organisation schemes

SchemeGood forWeakness
AlphabeticalKnown-item lookup, glossariesUseless if the user does not know the name.
ChronologicalNews, activity, versionsOnly works when time is the relevant dimension.
TopicalMost content sitesBoundaries between topics are contested.
Task-basedApplications and servicesRequires knowing the tasks, which requires research.
Audience-basedMulti-segment productsUsers often do not know which audience they are.
FacetedLarge cataloguesRequires clean, complete structured metadata.

Principles that hold up

  • Structure from user vocabulary and tasks, not from the organisation chart.
  • Breadth generally beats depth. Every additional level is another decision and another chance to go wrong.
  • One item can legitimately live in several places, provided the URL is canonical and consistent.
  • Labels are the interface to the structure. Test them separately from the design.
  • Plan for growth. A structure that only fits today's content will be violated within a year.

Sources

Where a source establishes something narrower than the popular reading of it, the note says so.

  • Information Architecture for the World Wide Web

    L. Rosenfeld, P. Morville and J. Arango, O'Reilly, 1998, fourth edition 2015

Continue from here

Each link says what the connection is, so you can tell a principle from an alternative from a thing people mix this up with.

Applies when you are designing

A Search ExperienceNavigation

Principles behind this

The reasoning this solution is an application of.

Often used with

These usually appear in the same screen or the same decision.

Commonly confused with

Close enough to be mixed up, different enough to matter.

  • NavigationPattern

    Architecture is the structure. Navigation is one view onto it, and a good menu cannot rescue a bad structure.

Practical example

A worked decision where this was the deciding factor.

Short definition

The one-paragraph version, for when that is all you need.

Related concept

Connected closely enough to change how you apply this.