Information Architecture principles for APPS

Summary

In this ID apps video, the focus is on Information Architecture (IA), a critical aspect of app design that enhances user experience by organizing and structuring content efficiently. The Latch principle—using location, alphabet, time, category, and hierarchy—is introduced as a method to organize information. Core principles of IA include organizational systems, labeling, navigation, and search systems. Techniques like card sorting, content inventory, and wireframing are highlighted as essential tools for effective IA. Site maps are discussed as blueprints for apps, crucial for organizing content, enhancing user experience, and facilitating communication among team members.

Takeaways

• 📚 Information Architecture (IA) is crucial for organizing, structuring, and labeling content to enhance user experience and task completion.
• 🔍 Latch, a principle by Richard Saul Wurman, offers a finite way to organize information through Location, Alphabet, Time, Category, and Hierarchy.
• 🐕 An example using dog breeds illustrates how Latch can organize content, making it easier for users to find specific information.
• 🗂 Organizational systems are the backbone of IA, involving categorization and structuring of content to facilitate user navigation.
• 🏷 Labeling systems are critical for representing content concisely, making it easily understandable and identifiable for users.
• 🔄 Navigation systems guide users through content, including menus, links, and other interactive elements, ensuring intuitive movement and a clear sense of location.
• 🔍 Search systems are integral to IA, allowing users to locate content efficiently through search engines, filters, and tags.
• 🧩 Techniques like card sorting, content inventory, and wireframing are essential for developing an effective IA.
• 🏗 Site maps serve as blueprints for websites or apps, helping organize content logically, ensure a smooth user experience, and facilitate communication among team members.
• 🔧 Creating site maps involves listing categories or pages, grouping them, and arranging them in a hierarchy to visualize user navigation.

Q & A

What is Information Architecture (IA)?

Information Architecture is the practice of organizing, structuring, and labeling content to make it easy for users to find and complete tasks. It is a critical part of user experience design.

Who developed the LATCH organizing principle?

The LATCH organizing principle was developed by Richard Saul Wurman, known as the founder of the TED series of talks.

What does LATCH stand for in the context of information organization?

LATCH stands for Location, Alphabet, Time, Category, and Hierarchy, which are ways to organize information to make sense of it.

Why is it important to organize dog breeds according to the LATCH principle?

Organizing dog breeds by LATCH helps users quickly find the breed they are looking for by categorizing them based on location, alphabetical order, time of recognition, popularity, or weight hierarchy.

What are the four main principles of Information Architecture?

The four main principles of Information Architecture are Organizational Systems, Labeling Systems, Navigation Systems, and Search Systems.

How do Organizational Systems enhance the usability of an app?

Organizational Systems enhance usability by categorizing content into groups and structures that are easy for users to find and understand, reducing the time it takes to locate information.

What role do Labeling Systems play in Information Architecture?

Labeling Systems represent content in a way that is easily understandable at a glance. They use concise terminology to help users quickly identify and understand what content to expect from a label.

Why are Navigation Systems important in Information Architecture?

Navigation Systems are important because they guide users through the content, providing an intuitive way to browse and move through the information without getting lost or frustrated.

How do Search Systems contribute to Information Architecture?

Search Systems allow users to find content quickly and efficiently by providing tools like search engines, filters, and tags that help locate content based on keywords or other criteria.

What is the purpose of a sitemap in the design process?

A sitemap serves as a blueprint for the website or app, helping to organize content logically, ensure a smooth user experience, facilitate communication among team members, and potentially aid in search engine optimization.

What are the steps to create a sitemap?

The steps to create a sitemap include listing all categories or pages, grouping them into categories, arranging them in a hierarchy, and visualizing how users will navigate through the app.

Outlines

00:00

📚 Introduction to Information Architecture

The video script introduces Information Architecture (IA) as a critical component of app design, emphasizing its role in organizing, structuring, and labeling content to enhance user experience. It explains the Latch principle, developed by Richard Saul Wurman, which stands for Location, Alphabet, Time, Category, and Hierarchy. This principle serves as a framework for organizing information effectively. The script uses the example of dog breeds to illustrate how applying the Latch principle can make information more accessible and understandable.

05:01

🔍 Core Principles of Information Architecture

This section delves into the core principles of IA, which include organizational systems, labeling systems, navigation systems, and search systems. Organizational systems categorize content, making it easy for users to find what they're looking for. Labeling systems represent content in a way that is easily understood at a glance. Navigation systems guide users through the content, ensuring they don't get lost. Search systems allow users to find content quickly and efficiently. The script also touches on the historical roots of IA in library science and database design, highlighting its evolution with the advent of the internet.

10:02

🛠 Techniques for Effective Information Architecture

The script discusses various techniques used in IA, such as card sorting, user research, content inventory, and wireframing. Card sorting helps understand how users group information, while site maps serve as blueprints for the structure and layout of an app or website. The importance of site maps is emphasized for organizing content, enhancing user experience, facilitating communication among team members, and aiding in search engine optimization. The process of creating site maps involves listing categories or pages, grouping them into categories, and arranging them in a hierarchy to visualize user navigation.

15:02

🚀 Conclusion and Recap of Information Architecture

In conclusion, the script recaps the importance of IA, highlighting the Latch organizing principle and the role of techniques like card sorting and site mapping in the design process. It emphasizes the significance of IA in preparing apps for users by ensuring content is well-organized and easily navigable. The script wraps up by thanking the audience and looking forward to the next class.

Keywords

💡Information Architecture (IA)

Information Architecture is the practice of organizing, structuring, and labeling content in a way that makes it easy for users to find and complete tasks. It is a critical part of user experience design. In the video, IA is described as the backbone of app design, emphasizing its importance in making content accessible and understandable for users.

💡Latch

Latch is an organizing principle developed by Richard Saul Wurman, which stands for Location, Alphabet, Time, Category, and Hierarchy. It is used to categorize and organize information in a finite way. In the script, Latch is applied to a collection of dog breeds to demonstrate how it can help users quickly find what they are looking for by organizing the breeds based on different criteria.

💡User Experience (UX) Design

User Experience Design focuses on enhancing the satisfaction and usability of a product by improving the interface between the user and the product. The video script discusses how Information Architecture plays a significant role in UX design by structuring content in a way that is intuitive and efficient for users.

💡Organizational Systems

Organizational systems in the context of IA refer to how content is categorized and structured. They are the backbone of IA and involve creating categories and hierarchies that make sense to users. The script mentions that effective organizational systems enhance usability and improve the user experience by reducing the time it takes for users to find information.

💡Labeling Systems

Labeling systems are part of IA that deal with how content is represented and named. They are crucial for making content understandable at a glance. The script explains that labels should be concise, intuitive, and meaningful, using the example of a 'About' page on a website, which is a common and intuitive label for users to understand what kind of information they will find.

💡Navigation Systems

Navigation systems are the mechanisms that allow users to browse and move through content. They include menus, links, and other interactive elements that guide users through an information space. The video emphasizes that effective navigation systems are intuitive and provide a clear sense of location and direction, helping users understand where they are and where they can go within the app or website.

💡Search Systems

Search systems in IA are tools that allow users to find content quickly and efficiently, often using keywords, tags, or other criteria. The script mentions that well-designed search systems are responsive, accurate, and provide relevant results based on user needs. Examples include search engines, filters, and category tags that help users narrow down their search.

💡Card Sorting

Card sorting is a user research technique used to understand how users group information. It involves showing users a set of cards, each representing a piece of content, and having them sort the cards into groups that make sense to them. The video script uses card sorting as an example of a technique that helps in creating an effective IA.

💡Site Maps

Site maps are blueprints for a website or app that outline the structure and layout of all the pages. They are essential for organizing content logically, ensuring a smooth user experience, and communicating the design plan to clients and team members. The script describes the process of creating site maps, starting from listing categories or pages, grouping them, and arranging them in a hierarchy.

💡Content Inventory

A content inventory is a comprehensive list of all the content that will be included in a website or app. It is a crucial step in the IA process, as it helps in understanding the scope of the content and planning how it will be organized. The video script mentions content inventory as a technique that aids in effective IA.

Highlights

Information architecture is crucial for user experience design, making content easy to find and use.

The Latch principle (Location, Alphabet, Time, Category, Hierarchy) is introduced as a method for organizing information.

Latch was developed by Richard Saul Wurman, known for his work on the TED series and 'Information Anxiety'.

Information organization is finite and can be managed effectively with the right principles.

Organizational systems are the backbone of information architecture, structuring how content is grouped and found.

Labeling systems are critical for making content understandable at a glance.

Navigation systems guide users through content and include menus, links, and interactive elements.

Search systems are essential for allowing users to find information quickly and efficiently.

Card sorting is a technique used to understand how users group information.

Site maps serve as blueprints for the structure and layout of an app or website.

Site maps are essential for organizing content, enhancing user experience, and communicating the design plan.

Creating site maps involves listing categories or pages, grouping them, and arranging them in a hierarchy.

Information architecture has evolved significantly with the advent of the internet.

The lecture discusses the importance of understanding the relationship between bodies of information.

The lecture provides a practical example using dog breeds to illustrate the Latch principle.

Organizational systems can be hierarchical, sequential, or matrix-based, depending on the content structure.

Effective labeling considers user language, cultural context, and expectations.

Navigation systems should be intuitive and provide a clear sense of location and direction.

Search systems should be responsive, accurate, and provide relevant results based on user needs.

The lecture concludes with insights on the importance of information architecture in app design.

Transcripts

hi there and welcome back to ID apps

today's short PO is on information

architecture or IIA um and we're going

to go through what is I think consider

the backbone of our app design this

semester um information architecture

just a broad definition here is the

practice of lay of organizing

structuring and labeling your content um

it is the way that we make our content

easy for our users to find and to

complete tasks so it's really critical

part of user experience

design we're going to start by looking

at an organizing principle um called

Latch and it was developed by Richard sa

Worman who you might know as the founder

of the Ted series of talks um and this

this is from

1996 um from his book information

anxiety making sense of information

uh through design so he says information

may be infinite however the organization

of information is finite so it can be

organized by Latch which is the location

alphabet time category and hierarchy so

to make sense of this let's go to the

dogs so oh before we do that um his last

quote here once you have a sense of

organization however casual you can

relax with the knowledge and begin to

examine the information from various

Vantage points which will enable you to

understand the relationship and that's

the important part between bodies of

information it sounds very high

pollutant but let's go for a simple

example and we're going to start with

dogs um if we look at this slide here

you can see there's just a whole heap of

dog breeds they're not organized in any

way we could see from the Silhouettes

what sort of dogs they are but it'd be

quite difficult for us to quickly find

the dog that we're looking for

um they make sense in the in the sense

that they're categorized as dogs so we

know they're all dogs um but we're just

sort of forced to look at each one

separately or as a single thing so let's

apply the latch principle of

organization to them and we'll start

with the L of latch which is for

location and you can see here I've

organized them basically by um they come

from so we can see you know the Afghan

Hound from Egypt down to you know a dog

from the new F I don't even know what

dog that is from Switzerland so location

might make sense to some people um it

might be a useful way to categorize

these uh dogs so L is for

location a

alphabet um so obviously these are

alphabetized in terms of their breed

name and we can see we're going for a

for Afghan again down to the wire Hound

or Fox Terrier um so it's alphabetized

this is a really good way to um

organize um information if your users

know what it is that they're looking for

so phone books are a really good example

I know I'm looking for w so I go to the

W page um if they don't know the name of

the thing this is not that useful to

your users so so we've had location

we've had alphabet let's go to time and

in time here we can see uh time might

not make sense dogs but I've organized

them here according to when the American

Kennel Club recognized the breed and so

the date of them being officially

recognized as the time category

here okay so L now we're up to C which

is category and I'd AR you all of these

things are categories but let's look at

the category here and I've chosen here

um we could choose a lot of categories

for organization here but um I've chosen

popularity we can see the number one dog

in the US is the laborador retriever the

10th most popular is the Shih Tzu there

we go duck Etc so I've organized them by

popularity here and that's the category

I've chosen for organizing them so you

can probably guess that category can

cover a lot of organizational um methods

next one we'll look at

hierarchy um

and we can see I've organized them by

weight here um I could have used a

hierarchy of height and then I would

have got a different order but I've done

the hierarchy of the you know lightest

dog through to the heaviest one but

hopefully you're getting the idea here

with latch and I think it's an easy one

to remember that um organizing

principles like this help you make sense

of a collection of stuff um and they're

really good for

sorting things out and use and they're

really useful for grouping things um

information architecture itself does

have its roots in uh Library science and

database design from the 1970s and datab

based design itself has evolved since

then but the principles fairly simp

similar and since we've had you know the

internet come forth it this this idea of

um information architecture has evolved

significantly and it plays a very

significant role in our design for our

apps um for very good reasons so let's

move on to some of the core principles

of information architecture and we can

see that here there's four main ones

there's organizational systems there's

labeling systems and I've just gone

through and labeled those dogs as

different things there's navigation

systems and there's search systems so

let's go through um those one by one and

just get a better sense of what they

what I'm actually meaning there so

organizational systems are how the

content is categorized so they're the

backbone of information

architecture um they're how it's grouped

how it's structured and more importantly

how your users can easily find what

they're looking for it involves creating

categories hierarchy so this might

become familiar to you from your card

sorting and taxonomies and they make

sense of the content for the users um

and the we pay attention to the context

in which it will be used so LX was a

very good example of organizing content

but all effective um organization

systems enhance the usability and they

improve the experience of that by

reducing the time would take your users

to find stuff or locate

information um organization systems are

also called classification systems um

and a system could be hierarchical they

could be sequential so hierarchical just

by importance and that's often visual um

sequential so a logical path would be an

example or a step-by-step checkout

process would an example for an apps

that's organized in a sequential way or

by matrix um so bit like a Choose Your

Own Adventure with internal links that

allow for different exploration would be

a matrix type

Arrangement so you can see there some of

the core principles for organizational

systems latch was an example of that the

next one um are labeling systems um

labeling systems are how the content is

represented um they're critical for

making content understandable at a

glance for your users um so they should

use concise terminology or concise words

to represent your content and they help

your users quickly identify and

understand what content to expect from

the label itself and they're really

essential for Effective navigation and

interaction so if you're looking at

labels you definitely take into account

what the users languages are what the

cultural context the labels are and

their expectations and they should

always be intuitive and

meaningful um so we to think of an

example say your user lands on a

homepage or something and wants to know

about the company's Mission maybe they

want to know about their values the

history of the company the leadership

team all of those things they could make

good labels but instead of putting all

of that into homepage as an information

architect you might just use the word

about as your label in the top

navigation we know what about means

we've seen it a lot you know we've seen

the word about used ubiquitously through

apps and through websites to mean that

they're going to show us that sort of

information every time so we don't have

to guess what about's going to have in

it we know already so good labeling is

really critical um for a good app or or

good information architecture practices

anyway next thing are navigation systems

so that's how users browse and move

through your content um they include

things like your menus your links and

other interactive elements um anything

that guides your users through the

information space that you've got

effective ones are obviously intuitive

they allow people to find what and

explores your content without getting

lost or frustrated and they also provide

a clear sense of location and direction

um helping users expl

understand where they are and where they

want to go um so navigation systems in

information architecture include things

like the main navigation interface any

subnavigation menus breadcrumbs are a

great example or some sense of the

pagination um so you can see there I've

just put in a a little grab of apples um

top level navigation and the Western

Sydney one so navigation systems you can

think of them as many menu or

breadcrumbs or subnavigation

menus um simply so in terms of an

information architecture cor prible

they're a good one to understand within

that other things are search systems and

you might not you know naturally think

that they're part of information

architecture but they are a very

important thing because they allow your

users to find things quickly and

efficiently um they would include things

like search engines filters um any tools

that help people locate content based on

keywords tags or other criteria we've

put some of those tags into our

WordPress Pages for finding information

down the track so a well-designed search

system is both responsive it's accurate

and it it provides relevant respon uh

relevant results based on our user needs

or what they are searching for and they

should be allowed to narrow down um what

it is that they're finding on the screen

there I've put in

a couple examples with different levels

of complexity and you can see the first

one up there in the right it's not the

first one but the one the rightand

corner is a a typical entry point uh

search engine you search uh field you

can see it's very simple it's just got

the magnifying glass icon and you just

do a basic search but then next to it

you can see there are different ways of

searching here with category tags so you

provide a list of categories that people

can search under so it's sort of

prefiltering or

pre it's sort of telling the users what

um the categories are that you've used

to um

structure the um information on your app

or site um and you can see there's

another example there with filters Etc

but they're the I guess main patterns

used for search search systems and I

think it's important for me to allude to

that so whenever you think think about

your implementing a search um bar as

some part of your site think about how

can I make this simpler for users what

filters might I need to allow them to a

place on there or could I do it through

um category tags that allow people to

quickly find the chunks of information

that they're looking for so search

systems are pretty important patents to

understand as an interaction

designer okay so technique we've been

through some of the core principles

including the search systems now let's

move on to some of the techniques we've

already been through one of these

process which is card sorting um user

research content inventory um and

wireframing all are all tools or

techniques that help you get an

effective information architecture um

card sorting for example helps helps you

understand how users group information

and that would be a process of showing

people or getting your users to actually

do the card sort in the first place um

so let's now we I think you understand

what card sorting is at this stage so

let's go through um a little bit more in

detail about uh site maps and

um how they might work as information

structuring techniques so site maps are

what they sound like they're a blueprint

for the website or the app imagine

you're building a house you wouldn't

start putting up the walls without a

plan um the same goes for your app a

sitemap helps us figure out the

structure and layout for all of the

pages before we start designing them so

why do we need one besides having our

house fall down why do we need a site

map there's four main reasons we need

them to organize

content um so the content's organized

logically we decide what pages we might

need at that

stage things like the homepage about

contact all of those sort of things to

make sure things nothing important gets

left out uh two the user experience so

wellth thought out site map makes sure

or ensures that users can easily find

what they're looking for think of it

like a road map that guides the visitors

through your app smoothly without

getting lost communication and I think

this is an important part it's a great

tool for communicating with your client

about what it is that you're building

and with your team members if you're

working in a team to design an app

Everyone by looking at a s map can see

the big picture and understand how

everything is going to be laid out um

there's also search engine optimization

benefits um it allows um search engines

to better optimize for sites in

particular maybe not so much but apps

and it allows its rank to to change but

uh we'll we'll be light on that for apps

this semester okay so creating site maps

how do you make these things it's pretty

pretty logical um you start by listing

all of the categories or pages that you

want on your app then you all group them

into categories the card sort we're

doing a card sort here and then arrange

them in a

hierarchy uh for example if you had

something under products you might have

things like Electronics clothing

accessory under products and it helps um

you visualize how people or your users

will navigate through your app um we can

see there I've put in an example we're

starting with a nested list we can see

up there at the top things we organize

we've got category a b and c and under

there there's some sub categories so

second level menu items like subcategory

B1 B2 C1 Etc you can see that in step

two I've made it into what you might

consider a more uh traditional site map

the first one with the tree light

structure things we organize with the

first level nav and then the secondary

level pages and then the one next to it

is just that put sideways um so they're

the steps pretty much in getting a site

map together you've got your categor

sorted and perhaps labeled you know

through grouping of your content and

then you create your hierarchy but the

important part of site Maps is they

allow you to think about the hierarchy

of your content so even though you've

done a card sort you know all of this

stuff fits in under one

label um and that will be you know your

secondary Pages you might it will give

you an opportunity to think oh were they

are they tertiary Pages or are they

going to be needing their own groups as

well so being able to map it out I think

as visual people gives us a great end to

seeing if our if our

information architecture is going to

work well or not so to conclude I

hopefully you've got some quick ideas

about why information architecture is

really important we've been through some

organizing principles the latch is a

great place to start we know how card

sorting fits into this as a Technique we

know that site maps come at the end and

are part of our design process for

getting our app um ready for our users

so thanks for listening and I'll see you

in class