Information architecture involves organizing, structuring, and labeling content on a website. Sitemaps are useful tools primarily for planning purposes.
People sometimes confuse information architecture (IA) with sitemaps. While they are connected, they are not the same. A sitemap is just one part of the website’s information architecture.
What Is a Sitemap?
A sitemap is a picture showing how your site’s content is organized. It’s like a map with boxes representing pages or content on your website. Arrows or lines show how the pages are linked together.
Some sitemaps also have notes to explain what each page does. For example, they might say if the label is just a category or a real page. Links to the web pages could also be in the diagram. The main purpose of a sitemap is to show how the website’s information is organized. Sitemaps are mainly used for planning and to see how the pages fit together. They can also help find missing content.
Are Sitemaps Ever Visible to Users?
Sitemaps are usually not shown to website visitors and are used for internal planning. However, some websites show a sitemap to help users find pages. In this case, the sitemap is shown as a list of links to the site’s pages. Over time, these sitemaps have become less common as better navigation tools have replaced them.
What Is Information Architecture?
In UX design, information architecture (IA) plays a key role in organizing and structuring a website’s content. It has two main components:
Content Organization and Navigation: IA involves deciding how to organize and manage content, how different pieces of content relate to one another, and how users navigate through this content on the website. This ensures a logical structure that allows users to easily find the information they need.
Website Structure and Navigation Elements: IA also defines the website’s overall structure, including the layout and naming conventions of its navigation elements. This helps to organize the content in a way that is consistent, easy to understand, and user-friendly. Essentially, IA determines how information is arranged and presented across the website.
The main goal of IA is to create a clear and intuitive system that enables users to easily discover and access content. It’s important to note that IA is not a one-time task but an ongoing process that requires constant updating and refinement. As the website evolves, IA needs to adapt and ensure that the content remains organized and accessible.
IA Activities and Deliverables
Several activities are involved in an IA project, each with specific deliverables:
- Content Inventory: This involves listing and categorizing all the digital content on the website. It’s typically done at the beginning of a redesign project to get a clear picture of what content exists.
- Deliverable: A table or list of all the content on the website.
- Content Audit: During a content audit, the usefulness of existing content is evaluated, and decisions are made on whether to keep, remove, or update it.
- Deliverable: A table showing which content will be kept, removed, or updated.
- Taxonomy Development: This step involves creating a classification system (taxonomy) to categorize the website’s content in a meaningful way.
- Deliverable: A chart showing the most general categories at the top, with more specific ones below.
- IA UX Research: This includes various research methods like card sorting, tree testing, and usability testing to assess how easily users can find content on the site.
- Deliverable: Research reports in the form of documents, videos, or presentations that outline findings and recommendations.
- Website Structure Planning: This activity involves organizing the website’s content and planning the layout and hierarchy of pages.
- Deliverable: A sitemap, which visually represents the organization and flow of the website’s content.
Information architecture is a comprehensive and evolving process that requires continuous planning, organization, and user-centered design to create websites that are both functional and user-friendly.
How Are IAs and Sitemaps Different?
A sitemap is a part of the overall information architecture (IA).
The IA also includes:
- The names of all website elements that help users find and discover information. These include labels for navigation, sections, and links. A sitemap only shows how content is organized and does not focus on specific names.
- The navigation tools of the website, like the search field, breadcrumbs, tags, and carousels. A sitemap only shows the general structure and not the smaller navigation tools.
- Creating a sitemap is only one part of creating the full IA. Many other steps are involved in building the IA.
The IA Comes First, Then the Sitemap.
IA is the foundation that organizes and defines the website’s content. After the IA is ready, sitemaps are made to visually show how everything fits together. Sitemaps give a broad view of the website’s content and how it flows.
IA is a plan, while a sitemap is a visual tool.
The IA shows how content is organized in theory. It comes from the process of deciding how content relates, how to group it, and how that affects navigation. A sitemap, on the other hand, is a clear visual diagram that helps share this organization with others.
A Sitemap Is Not As Detailed As IA.
A sitemap does not include all the details from the IA work. If it did, it would be too much for stakeholders to handle. Sitemaps are designed to show just enough to help people talk and make decisions.
Neither the Sitemap nor the IA Is Fixed.
Both sitemaps and IAs can change during the design process. Some parts of the IA may change because of user research, but some parts stay the same. For example, a list of categories (taxonomy) is usually set and doesn’t change often.
Conclusion:
Both the sitemap and IA are important for designing a good website. People might think that a sitemap is the final result of IA work, but IA is much more than that. It’s a process of continually deciding how to organize and manage your website’s content.