What is Information Architure (IA)

Information Architecture organizes content and usability for a website. The organization of the site should allow people to go through the site logically giving the user a sense a certainty they will be able to find wanted information. Usually when the architecture is poor users become angry and upset. They may even avoid using the site entirely.

A well designed architecture evolves from understanding the business objectives and constraints, the content, and the requirements of users of the site. Generally there are two types of architecture top-down information architecture and bottom-up information architecture:

1. Top-down involves developing a broad understanding of the business strategies and user needs. Then the high level structure of site is developed, and finally the detailed relationships between content.

2. Bottom-up involves understanding the detailed relationships between content and creating storyboards to show how the system could support specific user requirements.

Here’s an article related to informational architecture: http://www.cmswire.com/cms/web-cms/web-cms-market-predicted-to-hit-1-billion-in-2010-008420.php. The article is “Web CMS Market Predicted to Hit $1 Billion in 2010” by Barb Mosher. Mosher explains there is a high demand for website content management.

The IA will help the company’s online presence and will add measurable organizational value. Giving the research done by Gartner Magic Quadrant for Web Content Management , web content management will exceed $ 1 billion in 2010, growing annually at a compound rate of 14% from 2009 to 2014. These large revenues require IA to ensure the "overall experience are delivered to users and not just the content."