Information architecture

The information architecture describes the information structure of the site and how users will navigate through the site.

The site map

The website structure designed by the information architect determines what pages and site areas will need to be created to give the site a hierarchical structure. The site map describes the structure of the site and determines what pages and site areas are required for the site. For example:

• Home page
  • News Page
  • Products Page
    • Product Site Area 1
    • Product Site Area 2
    • Product Site Area 3

  • Downloads Page
  • Support Page

Content types

The content types identified by the information architect determine what authoring templates are required for the authoring system. For example, the site might require the following content types:

• Section home pages
• News articles
• Employee profiles
• Product information
• Photo galleries
• Legal disclaimers

Content profiling and taxonomies

The information architect is responsible for determining what taxonomies are required to allow users to profile content. This information determines what content will be displayed within menu components.

This is an example of a taxonomy for a financial services company:

• MetaBank taxonomy:
  • Financial
    • Banking Solutions
    • Interest Rates
      • Personal
      • Business
      • Corporate
  • News

Parent: Create a design document

Related:

Plan a site framework

Work with authoring templates

Presentation templates

Profiling strategies