W75p9 - Web Site Plan 9: Information Architecture

W75p - Web Site Plan and Specification Project

Details for Part 9: Information Architecture

Information Architecture (a.k.a. Blueprint, Site Map) - the high level aerial view of the "buckets" of information in your site.

We will create the architecture by the card-sorting process - that is, creating a card or slip of paper for each chunk of information, and having each of the team members sort them into related groups. Here's what you'll need to do:

Start with the "Content Inventory" you created in the previous step. Create a "card" or slip of paper with each information item on it. Actually, it helps to make several copies of each slip, so each team member (and possibly others as well) can "play".
Each team member and other person should sort the cards into groups. The groups should contain items that represent a page or series of related pages. Ideally, these groups should in turn be related to one another, so that similar groups are close to (above, below, or beside) groups of cards that share some common ideas.
If possible, the cards should be fixed to a large sheet of paper, and their position recorded - perhaps by photocopying.

After each person has created their own card grouping, these should be carefully compared by each member of the team. Similarities and differences should be discussed, until a decision can be reached about how to organize the actual site. If there is substantial disagreement, one design should be chosen as primary, and the other(s) listed as alternative possibilities. In that case, it is fruitful to test the different designed with users in the next step, "Usability Test Findings".

This document is part of instructional module W75p: Web Site Plan and Specification Project
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