Building a well-structured information architecture (IA) is one of the most important steps when redesigning your higher education website. Beautiful pictures and action-driving content mean nothing if your visitors can’t find the information they seek.
Before you get started, you must decide what tool you’ll use to build your institution’s new IA. There are great (and not-so-great) tools on the market to help with your IA development. Some cost money to use; others don’t. As with everything, the right tool for your college or university depends on your particular situation, needs, and resources.
Let me help. From years of experience working with clients on their IA, I’m well aware of which tools are available, the pros and cons for each, and in what circumstances they work best.
Top tools to consider when building your #hemktg information architecture. #mStoner
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Four tools to consider when developing your college or university’s IA:
Word Processor (Word, Google Docs)
Pros: Everyone has access to them, and they are “free” as part of licenses you already have. This also makes review and revision easy, because you don’t need to worry about stakeholders’ access to file formats.
Cons: They are bare-bones, and will require some extra work to convey contextual information such as content considerations. They also require a little bit of work to get the formatting just right.
Creation: It’s efficient to create IA using a word processor with a legal numbering format. Typing, tabbing, and copying and pasting allow you to easily move lines or entire sections around while automatically updating your numbering scheme.
Review and Discussion: Both Word and Google Docs provide easy-to use comment and discussion features that make tracking debates and decisions a breeze.
Delivery: Google Docs gets the nod over Word because of its online format, which makes it easy to have a single URL document to share easily with everyone who needs to review and use it.
At its best when: You need something with simple to intermediate complexity that a large number of people can easily access. This is the default format that I use because it’s the most effective with the widest number of stakeholder groups that we interact with on mStoner projects.
OmniOutliner
Pros: Most robust, efficient tool for building complex IA structures with detailed markup. Very easy to revise within the tool. My first choice if I am the only one using the documents. This is the information architect’s IA building tool.
Cons: Limited export types, very specific and constraining file types. Hard to share, hard to get feedback.
Creation: Combines the tabbing and copy/paste ease of a word processor with smart numbering, in-line notation, drag and drop, and show/hide functions that allow you to manage large IAs with many sections and tiers with ease.
Review and Discussion: The collapsable HTML export allows stakeholders to focus on one section of the navigation at a time and not get overwhelmed, but the lack of a native commenting function means you’ll experience the pain of using a second application to keep track of feedback notes.
Delivery: The only non-native file type that works well for most stakeholders is HTML, which requires FTP and a web server to host it — this alone can be a deal-breaker.
At its best when: You need to develop many-leveled, complex IA that will need to be frequently adjusted. You don’t need to worry about sharing out with non UX or IA individuals (or can share with a select few on campus who have the software and skills to use it properly).
Gather Content
Pros: Marries IA with content strategy and staging tools so that page and site level structure are seen together. Allows for an evolutionary document that starts as simple structure and adds content and migration notes as the project progresses. Could be a single platform solution that takes you through IA production > content modeling > content production > content migration if stakeholders are savvy to the difference and purpose of each step.
Cons: Introduces a lot of features and elements that aren’t specific to IA that can distract less savvy stakeholders from what you want them to focus on, and they can get lost in the weeds too easily and quickly. A slow creation and revision process makes it tedious to adjust once the initial structure is in place.
Creation: Much slower than other options, because each individual page item creation and modification runs against the server and takes a few seconds to process.
Review and Discussion: Commenting is geared toward content rather than structure discussions and is less intuitive than other options. Requires more training and explanation up-front for stakeholders to understand what to look at and comment on.
Delivery: Stakeholders are invited into the hosted system and given permission to review or edit. Everything is contained within the software’s native format. Can cause some headaches to set up user names and access.
At its best when: You have a cohesive creative team of the IA, content strategy, and content production resources in close contact and working together from the start, as well as stakeholders who know the difference between the steps and can focus on what’s important in each phase.
Wireframes (e.g. UXPin, Google Drawings, InVision)
Pros: Marries IA with lightweight design elements so navigation can be better understood in the context of design. Aids in discussions and decisions for design prototyping.
Cons: Can be too prescriptive too early in the process, forcing the IA to make decisions that are really design-centric and limiting creative solutions to interactive and navigation design decisions that could be made later on.
Creation: Basic wireframes can be created by non-designers, but still require a lot more time than other options to convey the same information.
Review and Discussion: In-line commenting is available, but it is likely to split focus between design and structure. Stakeholders will require careful walkthroughs of how to review and give feedback that is relevant to structure.
Delivery: Can be delivered via URL for review. Sometimes stakeholders will want to print.
At its best when: You are applying a new design to an existing structure, or when you need to build pages with complex interactions and multiple navigation states, such as filtered results lists. Really should be used in conjunction with one of the methods described above rather than as the sole IA delivery method.
Lastly, here are tools you may be considering, but should actually leave on the shelf:
Spreadsheets (Excel, Google Sheets)
Why: It’s impossible to keep track of numbering schemes in a spreadsheet, and even a small number of changes will have you spending too much time messing with getting everything lined up afterward.
Flowcharts (e.g. OmniGraffle)
Why: Visuals initially impress, but aren’t practical for creation, revisions, or presentation. Any IA beyond the most simple will begin to need non-standard sizes to display, which rules out remote collaboration and introduces the need for specialized printing sizes. Doesn’t play well with the highly iterative nature of IA builds in progress.
For additional thinking on IA process, tools, and much more, consider my three-part information architecture webinar series!
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