Website's Information Architecture

You’ve heard the story of the blind men and the elephant right? In it, 3 blind men touch an elephant for the first time and then go on to describe it. The first one only touches the elephant’s foot and claims the elephant is strong like a wall. The second touch its tusk and claims it is sharp like a spear. And the third touch its trunk and claims the elephant is slithery like a snake.

The moral is about perspectives. Different people can perceive the same thing in different ways, whereas the truth is the bigger picture. In much the same way, the information architecture of a website can be perceived in different ways by different people.

While I was studying one of my search client’s website’s information architecture, I read through a lot of articles, blogs, and whitepapers about the subject.
There are articles from top SEO bloggers e.g. Search Engine Land or digital agencies like Distilled on how information architecture is important and what are its components. I felt I was reading different things until I realized they were just different perspectives. I wanted to put up a simpler understanding of the bigger picture that is information architecture.

So what exactly is information architecture?
If you ask web developer professionals their responses will contain buzzwords like navigation, database structure, tables, etc. A product manager will talk about user experience, design, analytics, etc. And a search marketer you will get some grand structure about PageRank sculpting, crawl ability, and indexation.

I believe the most appropriate definition of information architecture comes from the book “Information Architecture for the World Wide Web” written by experts Lou Rosenfeld and Peter Morville. They have neatly stated the definition of information architecture as;
1. Organizational design of shared information environments
2. Combination of search, labeling, navigation within websites
3. Art & science of shaping information experiences to support searchability and usability.

When I read this definition, I don’t see any mentions of PageRank, indexation, or crawl ability. What we see are references to searchability and usability. Usability denotes how well users can achieve or complete specific tasks on a website & how the user experience is. Searchability denotes both browsing behaviors and querying.
The best way to look at a website’s information architecture, is to see it from the eyes of the user and asking questions like who are the potential site visitors, what are they looking for? The information architecture must be crafted based on the user’s mental models.

When we combine all the perspectives of a web developer, search marketer, and a product manager, it leads to the following terms that make up information architecture.
Information Architecture should make your website: Findable, Desirable & Usable. Your users should be able to find your website in search results, then find the navigation & presentation desirable, and then find the website itself usable.

Findable: Your website’s information architecture should be such that search engines can easily trace your website and your users can find it on search engines. This addresses the search marketer’s perspective.
Desirable: Dividing and presenting your content in such a way that facilitates interest and engagement. To do this, it is vital to have a user-centered design to produce a cohesive, predictable, and desirable effect in your target audience. This addresses the product manager’s perspective.
Usable: Usability refers to your website’s navigation scheme & data porting which impacts how easily, quickly & intuitively users can get from one point to another whether they are consuming content or performing transactions.

By looking at information architecture from the user’s perspective, we are able to see the bigger picture and which can be broken down into actionable factors for search marketers, web developers & product managers.

I hope you found this post useful. Contact me now to know if your website has the correct Information Architecture.