Information Architecture 1: Structuring and Organizing Web-Based Information
- New York: Thursday, March 25
- Chicago: Friday, April 23
- London: Monday, May 17
- San Francisco: Monday, June 14
- Toronto: Monday, August 9
Jen Cardello
Kathryn Whitenton
Full-Day Tutorial
Information Architecture (IA) is the cohesive structure that brings all of a website’s pieces together
in a uniform manner. After the strategic plan, IA is the single most important element driving website success.
Unfortunately, many Web teams lack the expertise or time to undertake a full-blown IA development phase and
often combine it with navigation and interface design. We understand this reality and have developed this seminar
to help teams for whom IA is a small (yet important) part of their Internet responsibilities.
There are hundreds of books and courses about IA. How is this one different? It incorporates empirical findings
from our extensive usability studies and examines them using screenshots, video clips, and explanations of real
user experiences.
Whether or not you have prior IA knowledge, Information Architecture 1 will help you get up to speed. You’ll
learn the whys, whats, and hows of developing a useful, usable, and extensible information structure that saves your
company time and money during and after development.
This seminar is not about library school theories or a speaker's pet ideas—it’s about what has been
shown to work in user testing.
What You’ll Learn
- Human behavioral principles as they pertain to website organization
- Key elements of IA
- Common IA pitfalls
- Information organizing principles
- How to test and refine IA
- How to communicate the important principles of IA to your organization
Course Outline
- Defining IA
- Skillset and roles
- Purpose and ROI
- Process and tools
- Defining user profiles and task scenarios
- Process documentation: The users/tasks/features/content matrix; feature list; site footprint; concept map
- User behavior
- Information foraging
- What users look at (eyetracking research)
- What users click on
- Why they do the things they do
- Recognizing behavior types
- Labeling and identifiers
- Getting naming ideas
- Competitive label inventory
- Dos and don’ts: Navigation labels and in-page links
- Indexing
- Card sorting
- Organization structures
- Hierarchy options
- Polyhierarchy
- Linear process
- Wiki
- Relational database
- Organization schemas
- Topic/subject
- Task
- Format (content-type)
- Audience
- Alphabetical
- Time
- Geography
- Attributes
- Tags
- Popularity
- Combination schemas
- Page architecture
- Website section architecture (or Mini-IA)
- Architecture beyond your website (i.e., “Mega-IA”)
- Search
- Politics (search is not just a technology)
- Natural language
- Parameterized search
- Things to anticipate/consider
Format
This full-day tutorial includes lecture, screenshots, user testing videos, and active participation.
Handouts
Copies of the presentation slides
Who Should Attend
The course assumes little to no knowledge of IA and is appropriate for anyone responsible for their organization's website, including managers, content contributors, and designers.
See Also:
See our companion course: Information Architecture 2.
Instructors
Jen Cardello is a User Experience Specialist with Nielsen Norman Group. Since 1996, Cardello has
specialized in user-centered and business-focused website strategy, expert reviews, competitive analysis, and
information architecture. She previously led customer experience consulting practices at Gomez Advisors, Watchfire,
and Keynote Systems, advising clients in sectors such as financial services, telecommunications, and lodging.
During this time, she also developed hundreds of user experience criteria for the Keynote Scorecards that benchmark
dozens of financial services websites including banks, brokerages, lenders, and insurance carriers. As principal
of her private practice, Cardello worked with clients in transportation, financial services, publishing, and
education to define user and usage-centered Web strategies and architectures. She has a BFA in architecture
from the Massachusetts College of Art and Design.
Kathryn Whitenton is a User Experience Specialist with Nielsen Norman Group. Prior to joining NN/g,
Whitenton worked as a Usability Engineer with the University of Washington Libraries, where she led user research
and usability testing for the Libraries’ website. She also worked as a psychology researcher at the University
of Texas at Austin, where she managed a clinical research study funded by the National Institutes of Health. Whitenton
holds a Master of Library and Information Science degree from the University of Washington, and a B.A. in Psychology
and Plan II from the University of Texas at Austin.
Presenting in Chicago, San Francisco, and Toronto.
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