milestone 3: create the solution

The thinking behind the IA of a website begins with the user (including the dependencies attached to it) and ends with the web user interface that is presented in a visual design. Our initial exercise in the first two milestones will give us the answers to set the foundation of the architecture and fortify the building blocks to reach the end-solution.


User Needs
Knowing the users of the site and understanding the way they think is the key factor in building a successful website. User-centric designs put users’ needs at the forefront and forms it as the basis of the site objectives and scope of work. This is identified through the business owners’ experience with their users and research on users’ demographics, culture, psychology, etc.

Site Objectives
This is the business strategy, which aims to match what the business owner wants to achieve through the site with what the users want to get out of the site, in order to produce an information system that is usable and useful. It incorporates business needs, technology, resources, politics, culture, and creative to derive goals for the site.

Content Requirements
The design of the website will be built around the type of content that the business owner wants to make users aware of, and reflects what the users want to know about and share. Users will only come to the site if it has the right content that is of interest to them, hence a content inventory is important to quantify the information and suggest the quality of information that will meet the users’ needs.

Functional Specifications
This takes from the scope of work of any project as it describes in detail what features and modules will be included in the site that will allow users to perform a function to meet their needs as well as make it easy for the business owner to reach out to and generate a user database.

Information Architecture
This design discipline combines the organization of brand elements, arrangement of content, navigation systems and related contextual information, and placement of additional functionality to aid users in gathering more information. It forms a skeletal blueprint of a web page, which lays out information based on its priority and allows easy access to the content available.

Interaction Design
This thinks less of visual appeal but more of the logic behind facilitating user interaction with the site and intuitive flow to complete a task. It provides a step-by-step walkthrough defining how the user will interact with an application that will be developed on a site.

Information Design
It involves labeling of widgets, modules and navigation with consistent vocabulary, assuring that content is presented in a clear and concise way that is easy to understand, optimizing the arrangement of information on a web page for effective dissemination of knowledge.

Navigation Design
Setting the navigation plays a substantial role in a website design, as common usability issues amount from a confusing, vaguely labeled and inconsistent navigation system. Hence the navigation design should intelligently group related content and keep lead-ins to high priority content upfront. This discipline combines interface elements and information architecture to create a logical framework to facilitate quick, easy and effective movement through the site.

Interface Design
This takes into account the discipline called Human Computer Interaction, which is focused on designing screens and menus that are easy to use, find and carries out a certain function, such as buttons, tabs, images and content blocks.

Visual Design
It is made up of the elements on a web page that the end-user sees and interacts with, whereby text, images and graphics are visually treated with a look-and-feel that is in harmony with the brand and adherent to the functionality of the site.

Once the building blocks have been laid down, the web user interface is ready for implementation and hands-on application of the end-users.

milestone 2: form the hypothesis

Following the flood of questions, we need to look at the problem from all angles to best decide an intuitive approach to the solution—so now we get the answers. Where do we find these answers?

• Creative brief
• Client briefing
• Content aggregation
• Proposed sitemap
• Competitor sites
• Benchmark sites
• Current site
• Brand assets
• Internal discussions
• Brainstorming sessions
• Research and discovery
• The list goes on, keep searching until you are satisfied…there’s always ‘Google’

After careful assessment of your results, you can now form a hypothesis generated from the context, which are the site objectives; the message, which is the information to be disseminated through the functionality of the site; and the audience, which accounts for the target user group of the site. The context and the message revolve around the audience like an electron cloud orbiting the nucleus of an atom.



As the audience is at the central core we need to determine the different types of users through personas to form a concrete hypothesis. A persona is a user profile that helps you make design and functionality decisions in order to make the site usable. Why is a persona important? It helps you get to know your end-users because understanding their needs is a vital step in creating an end-solution that suits their needs in a way that will make sense to them.


Continued Milestone 3 - Create a solution

milestone 1: define the problem

The IA process covers three milestones illustrated in this simple diagram:



Define the problem

When presented with a project, whether it is a redesign or starting from a blank slate, there is always a problem that triggered the need for the website. These are the most common problems a client brings to the table:

• Bringing about brand awareness to a larger global scale, but not excluding local or regional reach, which may already be taken care of by print and broadcast media
• Instigating user communities and user interaction, to assure brand loyalty and user retention
• Marketing the brand, products, and services to the target audience with the desire result of increasing sales, leads and customer patronage
• Maintaining a platform that is easily updatable in terms of information and multi-media to ensure dynamic content

After we have received the brief from the client, we need to dissect the problem in more detail with relation to the context, message and audience. At this stage we study the brief and ask questions.

Context

• Who is the client?
• What are the business needs and site objectives?
• What services do they offer?
• What are the organization’s desired results and goals?
• Do they have the resources to maintain the website?
• In what social or cultural environment will the website live?
• How will users access or reach this information?
• What are the connectivity and technical restrictions?

Message

• What is the nature of the content?
• What is the source of knowledge? Where will the information come from?
• How is the information organized and structured?
• What is the scope or purpose? Is it for general public consumption or a specific user group?
• What is the complexity of the message? Is it a simple cooking recipe or a case study on Internet Strategy?
• In what format, type of media or channel will the information be delivered?

Audience

• Who are your target users?
• Where are they? Where do they come from?
• What are their information needs?
• What will they do with the information?
• Why would they come to the website?
• What is their knowledge background? What is their experience base?
• How many times would they come to the website?
• What are their personalities and attitudes?
• Are they familiar with the information?

Continued: Milestone 2 - Form the hypothesis