University Web Developers
Large Sites and Information Architecture
"I apologize in advance, because this is going to be more of an article of philosophy, than a technical how-to. A while back I wrote a piece on the subject of breadcrumbs. In it, I made a comment about how breadcrumbs are a tool that helps expose the information architecture (IA) of a site to a visitor. A discussion ensued where a rebuttal was offered that visitors simply don’t care about a site’s IA. David Poteet said about IA (or rather a breadcrumb’s effect on IA) that certain ideas “…make the assumption that users understand or want to understand the structure of our sites.” I ceded that point based on the fact that I believe he was, in part, correct. Today, however, I wish to expand the topic some, and explain that while I believe they don’t care, they also certainly DO care. Your information architecture plan is very important, and you should understand why things get placed where they are..."
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Tags: architecture, ia, information, instinct, scent, sitemap, structure, wayfinding
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