Information Architecture principles for APPS
Summary
TLDRIn 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
📚 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.
🔍 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.
🛠 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.
🚀 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.
Mindmap
Keywords
💡Information Architecture (IA)
💡Latch
💡User Experience (UX) Design
💡Organizational Systems
💡Labeling Systems
💡Navigation Systems
💡Search Systems
💡Card Sorting
💡Site Maps
💡Content Inventory
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
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