How to Design Information Architecture in Singapore

Concept

There are a lot of definitions in the website. Widely informed are:

A, information architecture [noun]

What is “information”?

Information, data and knowledge.

Data is facts and figures … Knowledge is the things in the human brain … Information is right in the chaos between data and knowledge.

Therefore, the work of the information architecture is essentially the conversion of some data into something that can be transformed into knowledge when viewed or accessed, or the conversion of certain knowledge into data that can be passed on, reused, or It’s both a design process.

And architecture? In short, it contains three things:

Structuring – First he must decide on the size (or granularity) of the information in the website and decide on the relationship between these elements.
Determine the Organization – Organize these components into meaningful, distinctive categories. Sometimes called logical classification.
Labeling – Give each of these categories you generated a suitable name.

B, information architecture, that is, the way the information organization structure

In the site, information architecture is a site to classify the content, and to establish interaction to navigate the design of these contents.

An effective information architecture allows people to approach information they need step by step in a logical, intuitive and unobstructed manner. The design information classification website, page location, and to assist designers and programmers to complete the system, to establish this effective information architecture, is the information architect.

Most people only notice the existence of an information architecture if they can not find the information they need or if they are confused when looking for it. (This means that you’re using a well-designed system with no hassle and you will not notice the existence of an information architecture).

Information architecture design thinking

From top to bottom, before defining the overall structure of the site, first understand the business intentions and user needs, and finally consider the relationship between the specific content.
Bottom up, first understand the content of the link, through traversal, plot design and other means to make the system to meet the needs of special users, and then consider the higher level of structure need to support these needs.

In a complete project implementation process, these two methods are very important, ignoring the former, the site content organization can be good, but not necessarily meet the needs of users, ignoring the latter, the user can easily find what they need, but Difficult to have access to relevant content.

A phased way to establish an effective information architecture

user

Understand customer needs, context and user needs, read all existing documents, communicate with stakeholders, and make a list of things.
Guide test users to participate in card classification activities.
Through the classification of card type activities to assess the classification of the design, from which to find the trend of classification.

Reasonable classification of the categories and related priorities, through the analysis to find the workflow process.

user design

Make a draft of the information architecture out.
Use the card ux evaluation method to test the design of the framework.

Our card is the focus of each process, the information architecture sketch is the framework of the process, the two work together to verify the focus of the deviation; there are plans to ask the relevant personnel for usability testing, the role of user research plays a very important supplement ;

Do not expect too much success in the first design, finding the right wording and grading may require several iterations of design and evaluation.

Can be divided into three times, first of all, the first draft, to understand the rough framework of the information architecture, similar to the uml icon;

Once again, from the bottom up to sort out the user’s needs and process convergence;

Finally, from top to bottom, organize the navigation and system usage framework to determine the information architecture;

The information structure recorded as a site map, of course, this is not the final site map, page design is completed, the site map will be finalized.
Use plot design to test your website design. (Scenario simulation)
Let the other members of the development team also participate in storyboarding, and share with them the results of the test.
If possible, do more paper prototype or low-fidelity prototype tests before formal development. Make a demo with visio.
Create documentation that labels key user actions so that visual designers and programmers can be prompted to stay productive and take full advantage of the results of previous designs.

The design process of the product

There are many ways to document the results and gains of information architecture design. Here are a few commonly used ones:

Site map, it can be a good representation of a website’s organizational structure, but not necessarily reflect the structure of the navigation.
Annotated page design, page design determines the page navigation, content, features and other elements, visual design and program developers can use these notes to better understand the design intent to create the entire site.
Content Matrix, all pages of the site are placed in a content matrix, and for each page defines what should be displayed.
Page templates, page templates in the design of large sites or corporate internal site when it will need to define the content of a certain type of page type, global navigation, navigation lights within the column. This thing is the most used CMS, content management system.

The by-product of the design process

Role, role design for the system design provides a typical user goals, it can reduce the cost of user research and minimization.
Prototype, which is the model of the final work. Prototype can be very simple, simple to use a few pictures to represent the future complex site (low fidelity prototype), can also be more complex, have the same interactive ability of the final product High-fidelity prototype), the prototype test results in fact have been very good. Prototype design usually allows the entire information architecture to live up, so try to do more prototype testing before finalizing your design!
Plot, Plot Design Another technology that enables information architecture design to simulate how a user experiences the entire information architecture while performing a specific task can also make the rest of the team understand the design intentions .