Designing a Website

Information Architecture centered on customer needs and usability

© Barb Mosher

The days of designing a web site around a company's product or service is over. Now information architecture is about customer centric design and usability.

Information Architecture is the process of defining a website’s structure and content layout in a manner that is intuitive for its target audiences. The key to this is usability. It’s imperative to design a website with the customer’s needs in mind. If a customer can’t easily complete their task on the site, they’ll go elsewhere. And in the world of Web 2.0, they may tell everyone about their negative experiences through social networks and blogs. This article outlines what inputs are needed to this process, what outputs are completed and some approaches to complete the information architecture.

Inputs to the Process: To start the process of information architecture, the following information is required.

Outputs from the process:

Approaches: What type of activities can be performed to better understand the customer’s needs and how they will navigate the web site? In all cases, the information architect and/or business analyst can role play an audience; however, the best approach is to use a real person from that target audience.

Information Architecture is a critical component of a website design process. Putting the customer’s needs first by designing a site that is easy to navigate and read based on their requirements is paramount for a successful website. The next steps for a web design include the creative design and the Application Architecture.


The copyright of the article Designing a Website in Website Content Management is owned by Barb Mosher. Permission to republish Designing a Website must be granted by the author in writing.




Post this Article to facebook Add this Article to del.icio.us! Digg this Article furl this Article Add this Article to Reddit Add this Article to Technorati Add this Article to Newsvine Add this Article to Windows Live Add this Article to Yahoo Add this Article to StumbleUpon Add this Article to BlinkLists Add this Article to Spurl Add this Article to Google Add this Article to Ask Add this Article to Squidoo