People often why is Information Architecture(I.A) so important that it becomes it’s own consideration next to design, programming, and marketing. The answer I give them is that it’s involved in both the design and marketing, and then go on to explaining why. You honestly could have the best design in the world, but if you didn’t have any content on it, wouldn’t it be basically useless? In marketing, specifically, search engine optimization (SEO), it plays an integral role. I consider I.A a step in the entire Web Development process, and in my opinion it also aids in the metaphorical “kill two birds with one stone,” since this is a good step to have your keyword research completed. It allows you to properly craft your website’s content strategy to not only attract your users attention, but the search engines as well. While your working out your content strategy you can make important connections to other parts of your site to cross-promote, and include proper calls to action. If you’re not doing it on your own, and have someone delegated to this task, it would be a big advantage if they would be skilled at A/B & Multivariate testing for your site. Being compatible with your designer is another key asset, since they are just involved in the user experience as the designers.
I know this is a teaser, but I thought I’d use this as a primer for all of you. I will then build on it and reveal strategies to creating an effective I.A for all you that would like to tackle this task on your own.
