Now that we know the site’s scope, idea, and function, we have a good picture of what should be included in the final product. But the design phase is where we figure out how these pieces all fit together. And along every step of the way, you need to make sure you’re staying true to what came out of the planning stage.
IA Process
Design is the most iterative and fluid of the stages. The design phase of the UCD process encompasses many areas, and decisions made in one area can affect the others drastically.
Before you start laying out pages, you must start with the site’s overall information architecture. Use the results from your research phase to help find a way to organization the site’s content. It can be difficult to properly group and clearly label items on your site, so spending extra time here can save time later on. For example, Amazon.com sells a lot of music CDs online, but they divide music into two categories: Why do you think they did this? Do you agree with this decision? A carefully constructed classification scheme is the key to presenting your content in a way that makes sense to users.
IA Documentation
The organization of content on your site should also be documented in a chart called a site map, a diagram that shows where every single section in your site fits into the overall structure. Don’t forget to do a sanity check! Make sure the overall information architecture fits in with what your users expect and that the labeling is clear and consistent.