Information architecture (IA) focuses on organizing, structuring, and labeling content in an effective and sustainable way. Information can be created, accessed, stored, and presented given the following components:
- Organization Schemes and Structures: How you categorize and structure information
- Labeling Systems: How you represent information
- Navigation Systems: How users browse or move through information
- Search Systems: How users look for information

Sample information architecture diagram:

University of Michigan - Ann Arbor

The process map outlines the processes that encompass a user-centered web design workflow. The tasks performed and the order in which they are performed depends on the type of project, team, requirements, and timeline of the project. Although the map was created for web design, it can be used as a guide for any user-centered design. 

Check child nodes for explanation of each step.


User-Centered Web Design Process Map

usability.gov

https://www.usability.gov/how-to-and-tools/resources/ucd-map.html

User-Centered Design Process Map


https://www.usability.gov/how-to-and-tools/resources/ucd-map.html

User-Centered Design Process Map Reference

Developing a project plan includes defining the scope and staying on track, identifying the target audience, and setting measurable objectives.

When defining the scope, it's important to to define the following:
- What product is being developed?
- What information is going to be covered? Will it feature a particular topic or is it for a particular audience?
- What is the size of the product (i.e. how many pages will the site contain or how many screens for an app)? 
- Are you creating a website for an entire agency or organization? Is the site for part of that agency or organization?
- What amount of research do you intend to pursue? Is there time built in for incremental adjustments based on those findings.
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To identify the target audience, the following could be helpful:
- gaining insight from site's analytics
- performing market research 
- conducting user research methodology
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To set measurable objectives, two types of goals should be considered:
- user goals
- users' ability to accomplish tasks 

Developing a Plan

A user-centered design project requires an interdisciplinary team covering different areas of expertise such as:
- Accessibility
- Business Analysis
- Change Management
- Content Strategy
- Enterprise Architecture
- Information Architecture
- Interaction Design
- Marketing
- Metrics Analysis
- Project Management
- Quality Assurance
- Subject Matter Expertise
- Technical Development
- User Research
- Usability Testing
- User Interface Design
- Visual Design

Team members can be specialized in one area of expertise or cover multiple roles. The right kind of team structure depends on the type of project, project scope, budget, and timeline. Often, smaller teams within a larger team perform well for iterative design.

Assembling a Project Team

During the kick-off meeting, the vision and mission of the project and user and organizational goals need to be discussed.

The topics of conversation include:
- The project's audience
- Main user scenarios
- Improvements / problems with existing designs
- Vision, goals, and scope of the project
- Product outline

Holding a Kick-off Meeting

Task analysis is the process of observing ordinary users accomplish a particular task to learn about their behavior and understand in detail how they perform the tasks. Task analysis can help uncover the following questions:
- What your users’ goals are and what they are trying to achieve
- What users actually do to achieve those goals
- What experiences (personal, social, and cultural) users bring to the tasks
- How users are influenced by their physical environment
- How users’ previous knowledge and experience influence
- How they think about their work
- The workflow they follow to perform their tasks

There are two types of task analysis:
- Cognitive Task Analysis: this is focused on understanding tasks that require problem-solving, memory, attention, an judgement.
- Hierarchal Task Analysis: this is focused on decomposing a high level task into subtasks.

Task Analysis

Creating personas is a key step in user-centered design. The purpose of personas is to develop a reliable representative of the target users. Effective personas should:
- Represent a major user group for your website
- Express and focus on the major needs and expectations of the most important user groups
- Give a clear picture of the user's expectations and how they're likely to use the site
- Aid in uncovering universal features and functionality
- Describe real people with backgrounds, goals, and values

The following questions can help guide the process of developing an effective persona:
- Define the Purpose/Vision for the Site
- Describe the User: this should get into personal, professional, and technical details
- User motivation: this should describe what the user is looking to do, what their needs are, and what they are motivated by

Creating Personas

Basics of Information Architecture

According to a study of online reading content conducted by Jakob Nielsen, "users on average read about 28% of the words in an average  web visit; 20% is more likely." It's important to write user-friendly content to engage all users and write meaningful content. 

The following are helpful guidelines to write user-friendly content:
- Use the words your users use: this includes the keywords that your users use to help optimize search engines.
- Chunk your content: break down your content into smaller, digestible chunks. Try to limit 20 words per sentence and 5 sentences per paragraph.
- Front-load the important information: start with the most important content and then provide additional details.
- Use pronouns: the user is the "you" and the company/organization is the "we." 
- Use active voice and limit the use of passive voice.
- Use bullets and numbered lists.
- Use clear headlines and subheadings 
- Focus on images, diagrams, and multimedia. Leave ample white space
- Follow the F-pattern for presenting important information

Writing User-Friendly Content for the Web

Parallel design is a technique in which different people create different initial designs from the same set of requirements. After developing initial designs independently, designers come together present their ideas and use the best ideas to further improve their designs.

Best practices for parallel design are:
- Define which layouts to address
- Clarify the expectations regarding fidelity of the designs
- If using a team approach, be sure your teams have  equivalent skills
- Establish the evaluation criteria

Parallel design is usually used in the initial stages of a project but can be beneficial during further development as well.

Parallel Design

A prototype is a draft of the product that allows you to explore your ideas while showing the goals and intentions behind a particular feature or product. Prototypes can range from low-fidelity (paper drawings) to high-fidelity designs (fully functioning click-through products). Prototypes are used for usability testing, presenting products to clients, and visualizing the potential product.

- Low-fidelity prototypes: they are often paper-based, quick to create, and are helpful in enabling early visualizations of design solutions.
- High-fidelity prototypes: they are often computer-based and allow realistic user interactions (mouse-clicks, keyboard etc). They are effective in collecting true human performance data (such as the time taken to complete a certain task, effectiveness of navigation, etc.)

The attached table shows the differences between a sketch and a prototype.

Prototyping

Usability Evaluation focus on how well the user is able to accomplish a particular task or reach their goal and how satisfied they are with the overall experience. Usability is a combination of the following factors:
- Intuitive design: a nearly effortless understanding of the architecture and - navigation of the site
- Ease of learning: how fast a user who has never seen the user interface before can accomplish basic tasks
- Efficiency of use: How fast an experienced user can accomplish tasks
- Memorability: after visiting the site, if a user can remember enough to use it effectively in future visits
- Error frequency and severity: how often users make errors while using the system, how serious the errors are, and how users recover from the errors
- Subjective satisfaction: If the user likes using the system


Usability Evaluation Basics

A heuristic evaluation is conducted by usability experts to compare the interface of the product against a set of accepted usability principles. There are 10 Neilsen heuristics. Outlined below are the advantages and disadvantages of heuristics. 

Heuristic Evaluations

User research is conducted to learn more about the users' motivations, needs, and behaviors. This can be done by performing the following research methods:

- Card Sorting: allowing users to group the project's (for example: a website) information can reveal whether the project structure matches the way users think.
- Contextual Interviews: observation in the users' natural environment enables an authentic understanding of how users think and behave. 
- First Click Testing: the method is mainly focused on navigation to test how users navigate.
- Focus Groups: a moderated discussion with a group of users offers a level of control over the conversation.
- Heuristic Evaluations: a group of usability experts evaluate the product against a set of established guidelines.
- Individual Interviews: one-on-one discussions with users can yield richer and deeper insights into individual behaviors, needs, and motivations.
- Parallel Design: different designers work on different prototypes to come together and create the final design with the best aspects of each prototype.
- Personas: a persona is a representative user based on market research and user interviews to help guide the designing process. 
- Prototyping: prototyping allows designers to iterate on different designs before finalizing a design.
- Surveys: these are a series of questions that can be carried out digitally or on paper. 
- System Usability Scale (SUS): SUS is a technology independent ten item scale for subjective evaluation of the usability.
- Task Analysis: helpful to understand what kind of tasks the users want and undertake to complete bigger tasks.
- Usability Testing: identifies the problems and frustrations that users encounter while using the product, which can range from poor contrast to confusing navigation.
- Use Cases: this details the how users interact with a particular feature of the product and the steps that they need to perform to complete the task. 

Learn About Your Users - Research Methods

The purpose of scenarios is to describe the context behind why a user or a specific group of users chooses to interact with your product. The following should be considered when writing a scenario:
- Who is the user? Use the personas that have been developed to reflect the real, major user groups coming to your site.
- Why does the user come to the site?  Note what motivates the user to come to the site and their expectations upon arrival, if any.
- What goals does he/she have? Through task analysis, you can better understand the what the user wants on your site and therefore what the site must have for them to leave satisfied. 
- How can the user achieve their goals on the site? Define how the user can achieve his/ her goal on the site, identifying the various possibilities and any potential barriers.

There are three types of user scenarios:
- Goal or Task based scenarios state only what the user wants to do
- Elaborated Scenarios give more user story details
- Full Scale Task Scenarios include a step by step instruction of how the user accomplishes the task

Learn Before

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