Information Architecture / Sitemap
Information architecture (IA) is the practice of organizing, structuring, and labeling content so users can find what they need and understand where they are. For a web project, the sitemap is the IA deliverable: a hierarchical diagram of pages, sections, and navigation paths. Good IA is invisible to users, they simply find what they need without noticing the decisions that made it possible. Bad IA makes people feel lost in a space built to help them.
How content is structured, labeled, and navigated across a site.
Structure / Labels / Navigation / Findability
When to use this
- Before any website build, redesign, or migration, IA decisions made after development is underway are expensive to change.
- When analytics show high bounce rates or low pages-per-session, suggesting users cannot find related content.
- When multiple product lines, audience segments, or business units share a single site and their content needs to coexist.