The surge of information in the digital space, increasingly highlighted by recent research, has also brought forth significant changes, including the management, organization, and categorization of information, placing these topics at the forefront of public discourse.
Within the context of data science, ensuring both access to and presentation of information—alongside its usage—is of paramount importance, particularly through user-centered design and interaction design. Access to information (content) should be swift and transparent across databases, libraries, web pages, and application interfaces. In this regard, various technological tools and options are being offered to users overwhelmed by excessive information, enabling them to easily locate the information they seek. One prominent concept emerging in this context is information architecture.
Information Architecture
Information architecture encompasses not only technological aspects but also user behaviors and the characteristics of the information accessed. While this flow of information is most commonly delivered through websites and web applications, over time, technological advancements have introduced a diversity of formats and delivery methods. When considering different devices and similar variations, information overload can cause users to lose orientation within the information. To address this, information is presented in a structured, hierarchical format, enabling users to easily access the information they need. User interface design thus plays a crucial role in this process. Richard Saul Wurman treats this process as a profession, describing it as “the profession of organizing information that is becoming increasingly complex, without compromising creativity.”
User-centered and usability-tested interfaces make web pages more preferred by users than other websites with similar content. Therefore, user characteristics must be taken into account during website design. Websites designed based on user characteristics provide users with more effective content access, enabling them to reach information without getting lost within the site or performing unnecessary actions. Usability testing is increasingly being applied not only during the setup of new websites but also in the evaluation of existing ones1.
Priorities should always be defined based on users’ needs. Structured designs that avoid logical and visual clutter, presenting information in segmented sections and excluding or limiting elements that disrupt the content and user perception—such as background or advertising—will enable more intense user interactions and faster access to information.
A successful web project must begin with a clear understanding of the website’s purpose. A website’s business objective may be to sell products, assist in selling products, increase profits, promote the company’s brand, or improve marketing efforts. The oddity of the business is that none of its objectives generally align with the goals of a website user. The goals of a website user, on the other hand, may include finding the best price, fulfilling their intended purpose, or feeling unique as a consumer. As evident, the goals of these two groups are significantly different. So, how can we—web professionals, designers, project managers, and developers—please satisfy both groups simultaneously? Even though the business and user goals differ, is there a method that can align them closely and satisfy both groups?2
Three Principles of Information Architecture
Important rules:
- Maintain the original formatting (markdown, HTML tags, links, etc.)
- Keep technical terms and proper nouns as appropriate
- Preserve code blocks and technical syntax exactly
- Maintain the same tone and style
- Only output the translated text, no explanations or comments
The interaction between these three components within the information architecture is quite significant3:
- Ontology: A strategy for organizing specific meanings and defining different elements.
- Classification: The process of organizing a structure or its components in order to reach a defined goal.
- Curation: The interaction/alignment between ontology and classification within a specific context.
Although user-centered in general, since access to information is involved, it is beneficial to also include search engines in the design process. Ultimately, one of the popular ways to access information involves navigating through indexed content via search engines. Therefore, structures that serve the capabilities of search engines (see Site Map, Rich Snippets) can be considered valuable to users, albeit indirectly. For this reason, information architecture is also considered a key component of SEO (Search Engine Optimization) efforts4.
Finally
In summary, a content website should clearly display its content on the page in the context relevant to the user, provide links to related content (navigation), and indicate its position. In an e-commerce website, content is structured around product pages. In this case, the relevant product should be easily accessible, and the product and checkout processes should clearly indicate the user’s position, thereby guiding the user toward the desired action.
Footnotes
- p.280, “Measuring Web Page Usability: Web Page Example from the Information and Document Management Department, Hacettepe University”, Nazan (Özenç) Uçak and Tolga Çakmak ↩
- p.13-14,39,44,86-87, “Technology: Who’s it for?” (2005), Mehmet Doğan ↩
- Information Architecture, @wikipedia ↩
- Understanding Information Architecture, Peter Morville ↩