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We are information architecture consultants

At Info.Design, we follow a user-focused process for ensuring that a Website meets users' needs. While many organizations are anxious to start off with a great new "look" for their Website, our research and experience show that developing a user-centered structure must precede visual design decisions.

Our information architecture consulting work follows a structured process. For our process to work, we must take time to understand who your Website's users are, the context in which they would be visiting your Website, and what tasks they would expect to do there. We collect information in three phases:

• Phase 1: Envision Structure
• Phase 2: Analyze User Information
• Phase 3: Design Architecture

Phase 1 - Envision Structure
As the first phase in the Information Architecture process, we meet with you to determine your vision for the Website, the tasks you believe users will complete on the Website, and how the Website's content, organization, and navigation system will help people successfully perform these tasks.

We collect information using a user-focused planning structure, The Scope Definition Document. The Scope Definition Document is a precise goals statement for your new Website. It will give you a set of standards by which to evaluate the success of your redesigned Website. We then use the Scope Definition Document to present our initial findings and use it as the basis for data gathering in Phase 2.

Phase 2 - Analyze User Information
During the second phase, we talk with actual users to find out if the tasks they expect to perform on your Website match with what you believe your users want to do. Research shows that user satisfaction can be measured by the gap between what users expect from a Website and what they actually get. The user's positive experience correlates to increased loyalty and trust in your organization.

Our goal during this phase is to listen and gather complex customer data. The goal of the user analysis phase is to get important information out of your users' heads that enables us to structure the Website. We identify different groups of users; list tasks each group of users would perform on your Website; record the order in which they'd perform those tasks; and learn to support users they way they want to work. At the conclusion of this phase, we present combined results and receive client signoff. We then use this information for developing the Website structure for the Blueprint we develop in Phase 3.

Phase 3 - Design Architecture
In the third phase of our process, we use the information we gathered in the first two phases to architect a user-focused Website structure than ensures success. We arrange information into categories, hierarchies and sequences that make sense to users (labeling). Then we assign groupings (rendering) and present that structure in a Blueprint (blueprinting).

Labeling. It's challenging and time-consuming to arrange information into categories, hierarchies, and sequences that make sense to users. But it is also the single most important part of developing electronic documents. And, as information architects, it is what we do best.

Rendering. Our focus during this phase is on problem solving. We find ways to use words and pictures to guide users to the tasks they intend to accomplish and to the content they are looking for. Using the Scope Definition Document and the results of our user analysis as a starting point, we evaluate and chunk the existing content. For example, we ascertain whether or not the content supports users' needs and is easy to find, and we identify groupings of content and assign to those groupings an underlying structure. We also identify where, based on the new structure, there are now "holes" in the content that will need new text.

Blueprinting. The Blueprint contains both high-level Website structure maps and paper prototypes that show how elements of the various pages will be arranged. We realize some organizations spend thousands of dollars creating costly blueprints. We focus, instead, on the content and offer the client the choice of visualizing content structure: ink and paper mockups, Microsoft PowerPoint mockups (with or without live links), Quark Express mockups, or HTML wireframes.

To complete this phase, the client signs off on our labels and renderings. We use this structure to redesign the Website.

To find out more about how Info.Design's experience can benefit your organization, e-mail thom@thomhaller.com.