8 better practices from information architecture

8 better practices from information architecture

Lou Rosenfeld •! Rosenfeld Media •! rosenfeldmedia.com

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A little goes a long wayA handful of queries/tasks/ways to navigate/features/ documents meet the needs of your most important audiences

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from Christian Rohrer: http://is.gd/95HSQ2

Balanced research leads to true insight, new opportunities

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Steward Brand’s Pace Layering model Typical design

focus

Stuff that gets ignored:mission, vision, charter, goals, KPI, objectives

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Contextual navigation: your site’s desire lines

Deep navigation requires content modeling:

a better approach to deep IA and content structuring

Determine through content modeling, site

search analytics

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Recognizing specialized queries(e.g., proper nouns, dates, unique ID#s)

search pattern: TA292761

search pattern: regulations

March 2011

search pattern: regulations

Caterpillar

search pattern: regulations Owens

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" " Treat your content like an onion

layerinformation architecture

usability content strategy

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indexed by search engine

leave it alone leave it alone

tagged by userssqueaky wheel issues

addressedrefresh annually

tagged by experts (non-topical tags)

test with a service (e.g., UserTesting.com)

refresh monthly

tagged by experts (topical tags)

“traditional” lab-based user testing

titled according to guidelines

content models for contextual navigation

A/B testingstructured according

to schema

to do

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Your site is a moving target built on moving targets

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Summary:8 IA better practices

1. Diagnose the important problems

2. Balance your evidence

3. Advocate for the long term

4. Measure engagement

5. Support contextual navigation

6. Improve search across silos

7. Combine design approaches effectively

8. Tune your design over time

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Say hello

Lou Rosenfeld

lou@louisrosenfeld.com

Rosenfeld Media!

www.louisrosenfeld.com | @louisrosenfeldwww.rosenfeldmedia.com | @rosenfeldmedia

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