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Information Architecture: How To Help Users Find Relevant Content - Part 2

2010-09-01 10:10
Can information architecture principles be easily put to good use when trying to help your readers find relevant content on your site When your web site is so full of content that a simple search box won t do the trick anymore, what can you do to structure and make all of your content more easily accessible Photo credit: Ndul By employing sound information architecture principles you can develop a content organization and navigation strategy that allows your readers to easily locate what they are looking for while having a rich and enjoyable user-experience. For example visual site maps and visually grouped search results are much better approaches to help a user find what he is looking for than traditional linear text-based search engine result pages. The information provided is exactly the same, but it s the way the information itself is presented, organized and connected to your navigation system which provides two very different user experiences. And these type of challenges were the ones encountered by Stefano De Caro, Nicoletta Di Blas and Luigi Spagnolo a team of content and information architects, when asked to design an interface and content navigation system capable of handling a huge amount of data belonging to the Italian cultural heritage archives. Following their successful work, the team decided to prepare an in-depth report where they explain and illustrate their fascinating research and content design journey. Their goal is to help more people understand how information architecture principles can be effectively utilized to structure the content of a web site and how these same principles can help you repurpose information in ways that make it more easily discoverable and visually-intriguing for your readers. While Part 1 of this report dealt more with the theory and the challenges behind the design of a large cultural web site, Part 2 explains what are the actual steps you need to take to organize and present information in simple and engaging ways without overwhelming your final readers. Here is Part 2 - Information Architecture: How To Help Users Find Relevant Content (Part 1) In Search of Novel Ways To Design Large Cultural Web Sites by Stefano De Caro, Nicoletta Di Blas and Luigi Spagnolo Information Architecture Put To Use Fig 1: SEE-IA design strategies satisfy fundamental requirements of the user experience. Findability, serendipitous discovery, at a glance sense-making, playful exploration, branding and communication strength, as well as, of course, usability were considered critical requirements for the web site (Figure 1). To tackle this challenge, we introduced SEE-IA (SEarch-Enhanced information architecture - pron. see ya ), an integrated set of interactive and RIA-enabled design strategies that leverage existing search patterns, such as faceted search, and properly integrates them with engineered information architectures, to support important requirements for the user experience (see Figure 1) in large, content...
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