tedster - 9:57 am on Oct 18, 2004 (gmt 0)

A different angle on Information Architecture that can often clarify things is to create "scenarios". You might also call this role playing.

The approach is to dummy up an imaginary user. Give them a name (it helps!), a demographic profile and most of all a task. You've already done this to a degree by recognizing that the "ready to buy" visitor should come in at a deep page and the more general "window shopper" should start closer to the Home Page.

But try to get a bit more specific with each of these phantom folk - even ask a friend or colleague to take on the role you've set up, and then ask them:

1. What other information (and links) will they want if they arrive at a page of each given level.

2. What information (and links) will be merely be a distraction or confusion at each given level.

THINGS TO LOOK FOR:
- Except for top level menu, you may want to treat each level's navigation differently - this role playing will help you see if that's true or not.

- You may see more of a need for a "related pages" box than a full-blown menu, at least for some levels.

- Even though an Information Architecture seems so logical and hierarchical, you may uncover a need for more cross-category redundancy. If you do, look for a way to accommodate it.

We've been working and reworking the IA of a client's site for over a year, and we're finding that we get the very best results with an almost maddening (for the developer, at least) level of cross-category links and redundancy. But the customer feedback now is that they never feel lost, which they certainly did a year ago.