Stop 06 · Design Collaboration & UXTopics · 8/10

Information Architecture

In short

If users can't find a feature, it may as well not exist. Information architecture is how you organise and name things so people find them without thinking.

How content and features are organized and labeled so users can find what they need — navigation structure, categorization and labeling, mostly invisible when done well.

The purple blob arranges fruits, snacks and soaps onto separate shelves in a small store.

Think of it like this

The well-arranged grocery store

In a good kirana store, fruits sit together, snacks in one rack and soaps on another. You find biscuits without asking. If the shopkeeper sorted by box colour instead, you'd be lost. IA is deciding the racks and their names.

Watch it happen

A food app's structure

Home

1/5IA starts with the top level: the few big buckets users see first.

The big ideas

What you need to know

Group by user thinking

Organise the way users think, not the way your org chart or database is split.

Plain labels win

Use words users already use. Clever names make people hesitate.

Card sorting

Users group topic cards into piles. It shows how they naturally think about your content.

Tree testing

Users find items in a text-only menu. It tests your structure before any design.

Save yourself the pain

Common mistakes

Oops

Copying the company's team structure into the menu.

Do this instead

Users don't know your teams. Group by tasks and words they use.

Oops

Adding every new feature to the top-level menu.

Do this instead

Keep the top level small and fit new features into existing groups where they belong.

Your mission

Run a paper card sort

~30 min

Quick check

Users keep looking for "Refunds" under Help, but it lives under Payments. What's the best next step?

Go deeper

1Sketch the navigation structure (a sitemap) of an app you use.
2Try a 'card sorting' exercise to see how you'd naturally group a set of features.
3Notice how poor information architecture causes 'I know it's in here somewhere' frustration.