We have all had experiences where we couldn’t find information on a website or in an application. Most blame that on poor search optimization, but maybe it was poor information architecture (IA). A great experience with a site or application is only possible with solid IA under the hood. CMS Wire brought this news to us in their article, “How Information Architecture Improves Customer Experience.”
IA is the practice of structuring, organizing and labeling information to bring order and understanding to information products and experiences. It is about making sense and creating order out of messes. IA happens at the intersection of content, context and people.
Achieving good IA means learning and applying the most appropriate structures and labels for information, and then developing important tools like taxonomies, ontologies and data models. This goes beyond site maps and web design. With an effective IA in place, systems can process enormous amounts of information and deliver relevant content to customers expediently.
Melody K. Smith
Sponsored by Data Harmony, a unit of Access Innovations, the world leader in indexing and making content findable.
