Information Architecture (IA)- How Design Studios, Freelancers, Corporates, Startups Do

Making the information architecture could be very complex. Sometimes even not having a proper guide can lead to misinformation. And your particular way in which you are designing an application or a product could be very different. Right? So there needs to be a methodology. Again, there needs to be some creativity also and openness based on the problem statement. Whatever you are trying to solve. This particular podcast is going to give you clarity on how information architecture can be done when you're working in a startup, or when you're working in a corporate or even a big design studio, or even if you're doing your freelancing work, how exactly you can do. And I'm going to be giving you eight different steps and clarity on how you can do it. Okay? So take a lot of notes on each and every section and I'll be sharing some resources and materials also so that you can get clarity more on researching out of this topic. Okay, so now let's dive into this podcast. So how do you do this information architecture? The name itself suggests it's a way in which you architect a particular solution. Right? So what is architecture? Normally when a construction is made or when a building is really made, there used to be a very good plan and a proper way and a methodology to approach that particular layout of the building, right? So where is the hall, where is the kitchen and how does the people really enter and how does it really look like and what are the space around it and what is the overall layout and plan is actually a job of an architect to do for a building before construction, right? So why it is done? It is to avoid a lot of iterations. It is to avoid lot of cost and materials which can be avoided. Because if you do a building wrong, then you will have to reiterate everything by collapsing it, right? So the same intention is being followed while you're building a particular solution as well. Like let's say if it's a digital product or even a physical product. When it comes to information architecture, this gives you a proper navigation of how the product is going to be interacted with the user and how the user is going to interact with the product. Right? So how the feedback is there and how is the particular thing is being planned and structured. This particular podcast I'm going to be telling you four different strategies, like let's say how a startup really approaches, a freelancer, a corporate and a design studio takes care of it. Okay, so the eight steps, the first step is understanding the problem. This is the very first step in doing this particular information architecture. Okay, so what Is the real market research done and what are the need of the user and what are the business goal? If you are a startup or if you're even a freelancer, you need to really find that out. Okay, what are the real need of that? Particularly if you're working in a freelancer, you need to really focus on direct communication with the client because you have the accessibility. Many times it's much easier for you to communicate to them and try to find out their vision and mission and goals. If you are corporate, it involves a collaboration across department to align their business objectives very clearly. And if you are working in a proper design studios like let's say Ideo, Design Studio or Frog, you need to leverage the expertise of whatever systems which has been built to understand the problem statement, Sometimes even to understand the problem statement. Design studios will have a lot of vigorous process and design thinking approach even to find the problem. Not even the project has started. So based on the scenario, wherever you're working, you need to use that particular stand to understand the problem. This is the very first step. Second is user research. See, when you're a startup, you can rely on lean methods, you can do some surveys, online methods, interview, field study, etc. If you are a freelancers, you can directly talk to the customer and get some online feedback for the product. Particularly corporates and design studios, they have a very comprehensive testing methodologies, they have a research tools like quantitative analysis. Quantitative analysis so that you can approach using a primary, secondary methods to cross check and make a detailed analytics out of it. Okay, so first is understanding the problem. Second is doing some user research to get the clarity. Third is building some audit of the information, whatever you got. Particularly if you are working in a startup, you need to do some basic assessment of existing information about your competitors. Okay, because you are a startup, you cannot do anything on your own or you cannot do anything on your own to build your research reservoir or a data. Because you have already a time constraint and a human resource constraint and budget constraint. So you will have to rely on something like existing competitors information. If you're a startup. If you are a freelancer, you can do lot of competitor analysis also. But you can get the reviews of available product, you can talk to the customer or a client, get the materials and resources directly. Sometimes it will be much helpful because in that case customer will also be ready with the mindset. Okay, this is a freelancer project and you need to have this much expectation clear. Always if you set the expectation clear. Being a freelancer, you avoid a lot of miscommunication and later problems happening during your payment transaction or getting new projects. If you are working in a corporate studios and proper design entities, you will have to utilize the expertise by evaluating existing information. A lot of times corporates will have lot of already information done, lot of big projects information and already some information architectures regarding to similar projects would be available in your design. You can take that and you can analyze the trend what is currently required and then you can able to make a big information structuring out of it. You need to audit that information. You need to understand the industry standards, you need to align this information and keep it. This is called exactly information audit. The moment when you audit and analyze along with your data team and market meeting and sales team, you get to have more bigger picture for your project. Next comes the fourth important strategy is content management and strategy arrangement of the content. Okay, so whenever you're working in a big organization, this becomes a very good understanding because they have a very comprehensive method to do it. They have a very good way. Like let's say if it is going for additional marketing, if it's going for a social media content, if it's going to be used on a website or maybe an application. The way in which you make the content is very different. They have a very holistic approach. They have a design principles, they have UX guidelines and process and principles to do it. Okay, whenever you're doing a freelancer, whenever you're doing a freelancing project, so develop a tailored content strategy based on the client requirement and talk to the client to get it. See, this is the best way to do. You cannot do as a corporate does, right? It is not practically possible also. So whenever you're doing an information architecture, it's much easier to do that way. If you are startup, focus on lean strategy with few people aligning with the brand guidelines, what are the need of the customer and make the content strategy accordingly. If you're able to do this for like let's say based on the category, whichever you are now, you will have more clear understanding on the information. Whatever you have and where is the strategy you are going to approach. Like let's say if it's an application, if it's a website, if it's a physical product, you will have much more clarity even if that customer is interacting with the physical product. Like let's say if it's in a store, or if it's in a retail outlet, or if it's in a home, or if it's in a factory outlet. How does the interaction really going to affect so information architecture. If you wanted to really build for a product, this level of understanding needs to be there. Once this fourth step is understood, now you can go and work on wireframes and prototyping. Okay, so you may use a simpler quick approach and iteration method to do. If you are a freelancer or a startup. If you are working in a proper design studio, you have lot of tools like let's say you can build prototypes in Envision, you can build wireframes in Miro, you can do Figma, you can do Adobe XT Sketch, you can use collaborative platforms and tools so that you can build lot of wireframes. You can use something like Prototype IO where you can do some wireframes on prototype very faster. Okay, so you can use advanced tools and wireframes to do that information. Once that information is ready, then you can test and iterate it. Okay, if it's a startup, you can do with a small user group to test it out and adopt it. If it's a freelance project, you can directly ask your customer who is your exact audience and test it and get them direct feedback. See, this is more easy and interesting. If you are a proper design studio, please evaluate a user testing criteria, have a usability plan, choose a field research area. I've recorded a separate podcast on how you can do a field test. Okay, so you can, you can much define it clearly and you can even plan the date, plan the questionnaire, survey method or whatever you're going to do and then go and do it in an app iterative way. Okay, Once if that feedback is there, then you can analyze and you can go back and do it one more time. Okay, it's a continuous refinement. If you have to do it, whether if you're working in a studio or in a particular corporate, you need to have an iterative method to refine your concepts even more better. By doing multiple times, even one or two times, you can go for that field and validate. If you're a freelancer or a what you call startup, you cannot do. You need to talk to customer, get the feedback and move on to the next step. Once if your testing and iteration is there, then you can move for optimal approach. Now you find okay, having understood so much of data, having understood so much of customers inputs and iterative feedback, now you make the information architecture even more optimal way you can draw even more shorter path. Like let's say if your consumer is an online consumer e commerce industry, you if the customer is taking 10 steps to do the particular purchase and payment. How you can make it six steps. Now you find the optimal approach because you have lot of information and insight from your earlier six steps. If you are a freelancer, it's really good guys. You can talk to the customer, make a user centric diagram, make sure what is business requirement, user requirement and what is aesthetic requirement and functional requirement. Align it. Same goes for startup. Also you can combine this through thorough understanding of the projects scale and resources. But if you're a corporate, you can combine it with using strong focus on user needs and behavior and business goals. Aligning to that, you can make a very good mapping out of it. You can make a very systemic approach so that you can even adapt the design into a much more bigger scale because you are catering a larger audience, right? You are catering a bigger organization in need. So that's why if you're working in a corporate and studios, this is a very good step which you can do extensively. Sometimes it takes a lot of weeks to find this balance between flexibility and how the functionality is really going to align and how systemically you can able to approach this. Okay, the last methodology is learning resources. See you need to continuously learn in this process. If any information is required, you need to go and read about that subject, talk to the people, get the field data reiterated. Even if you're a startup, even if you're a fresher, even if you are working in as a freelancer, even if you're a corporate industry, industry specific resources needs to be there and continuous training needs to be coming in then and only you can able to continuously do it. See the seventh, the eighth important step is learning resource. A lot of people don't do it. They just do it with the assumption. They just do it with the already available data in their corporate. That's it. They close the project. Where is the point of openness and flexibility and feedback, Right? So think upon it. Very important step is learning and continuously iterating and refining your project. Many times if it's a big design studio, they get very stuck. Okay, so let me reiterate on this. The first is understanding the problem. The second is making some user research. Third is information audit. How much audit you have, how much information you have and how you were able to audit it. And then make a content strategy where your content is going to a website or an app or a social media post or something like a physical product. Whether it's an outlet interaction or it's a plant interaction or it's a real time home interaction. And next step is Wireframing and prototyping. And next comes testing and iteration. After that you find the optimal way to approach and then keep a learning curve for you to openly observe it. Once you are able to do it, definitely you should be able to bring a better information architecture for you. Okay, so I'll give you one small case study of a UI UX and product design for application. Okay. In that case, first is define your user goals and objective. Second is make a user research as fitted. Third is aligning your content strategy. And fourth is do a card sorting. Because now you will have a lot of information of the user and you will have groupings, you will have some hierarchies like let's say you will have some kind of a primary hierarchy, secondary hierarchy, tertiary hierarchy. So now you can structure your information in an even more better way so that you can build some architecture. Okay, after this card sorting is done. Done. Now you can go for site map creation. So what is site map creation? It's a visual representation of a website structure. Like let's say if you are having a website, you can see a button called home, you can see a button called about, you can see a button called products, you can see a button called connect. Right? So this is the four main subject. In that subject you have sub subject like let's say if it's a product, product A product B product C if it's an about like our mission, vision value. So if this three things, things are coming inside a section so that becomes a secondary information. So people can able to go through this navigation. If you properly structure your site. Okay, if you're, if you're able to do your website or an application, it applies for both. So it is like defining the main navigation part between the pages on the screen. After you do a wireframing prototype, user testing, refinement and then make high fidelity mockups and then you develop the product and then you launch it and monitor it. So why it has been followed for a particular website and a mobile application like this is it's been largely proven for a decade people have done it. That's why I took a case study of a mobile and a website, mobile app and website, so that it's much successful to do. But let me tell you guys, in the future it's not going to be only mobile or application of a website or something like that, right? It could be even more, it could be a watch, it could be even a different gadget or maybe different kind of an interface will come. So how, how do you really structure your information. This is going to be same. Only thing is a little iteration will come instead of high fidelity mockups. Maybe AI enabled tools will come so that you can directly build your final mock up itself. There is no need to even do low fidelity medium high. So always have that openness to learn. That's why I said the eighth important point. Learn and have an openness. So what happens is you tend to really cater to the latest trends of the market very carefully. Once if you're able to do it, definitely you will be able to have a better clear information architecture. You can read a book called Don't Make Me Think by Steve kru, you can read Information Architecture for the Web and Beyond by Louis Roinfeld and Peter Morville, and you can take some materials from Nielsen Norman Group. You can do. You can read a smashing magazine, you can go to smashingmagazine.com for design articles and you can read Medium Blog. So I'm pasting you some of the content in the resources section in podcast. You can read about it because once you're having this clarity, you will make a better information architecture than your competitors in a much clearer way. Okay? So thank you so much guys. I hope this podcast would have given you some clarity on how you're structuring your information and getting clarity. So if you find this useful, give me a best rating in Spotify and Apple. If you need my mentorship support in taking your design journey to next level to dig deep into it, write an email to me. I'll be able to help you out to join my mentorship program because I don't take normally a lot of students. If somebody is really interested and I find them really, what do you call enthusiastic? I'll take them. Okay. So thank you so much guys. Take care. All the best. Bye bye.