Information Architecture

Cognitive load

How much information a person is able to process in a period of time. Designing with a user’s cognitive capabilities in mind prevents accidentally overloading the user with information they are unable to handle.

Decision making

How we assist in their process of selecting from a range of choices or options. Helping to extradite the decision making process by providing key information at the appropriate moments.

Mental Models

How researching and mapping the common assumptions people carry in their heads allows the content to be better structured. Information becomes easier to discover when it matches the user’s mental model of where things ought to be.

Human-centric design is the modern trend, and with it comes learning the principles of information architecture. Efficient design does not exist without it.

Information architecture acts as the skeleton of any project. It removes distractions and gives a calm, focused area for content to exist.

Unorganised content only serves to frustrate the user and as navigation becomes more difficult their journey becomes more muddled. They’ll be running in circles trying to find the right content. In the long run it saves time, money and resources which would have been spent on fixing and improving all the usability and navigational problems that come up without proper information architecture.