Corporate Information Architecture
Information architecture (IA) is the art and science of structuring and organizing information environments to help people effectively fulfil their information needs.
The Importance of Information Architecture:
Flaws in information architecture can affect a web site's bottom-line quite dramatically. This impact is most applicable to e-commerce sites (also known as B2C or Business-to-Consumer sites).
- Lower revenue caused by failed searches: One consulting firm observed that 56% of search engine queries on e-commerce sites ended in failure and claimed that this translates into a loss of billions of dollars.
- Lost revenue caused by abandonment and attrition: One market analyst report states that when looking for products, 62% of online shoppers had given up at least once. 42% had turned to non-Web channels to complete their purchase.
While the impact of flawed information architectures on intranets may be harder to measure in monetary terms, the effects are no less significant:
- Lost productivity caused by not knowing where to look: At one IT company, 41% of employees surveyed stated that they were unsure of what channel of information (e.g., email, intranet) to use to locate knowledge.
- Lost productivity caused by not being able to find needed information effectively: One oil company's head of information services reported that 35% of an employee's time is wasted looking for information and that over the last 10 years that number has been as high as 50%.
- Lost productivity caused by not being able to manage content effectively.
- All of these inefficiencies can lead to decreased employee morale, compounded productivity losses, and can contribute to unnecessary turnover and training costs. The impact of flawed information architecture may also have a significant impact on information architects themselves.
- Legal liability. Consider IAM.com's recent lawsuit against Web development firm Razorfish for delivering a site that was "flawed by grave technical and navigational problems." We now live in a world where information architects can be sued for poor IA design. Once decision-makers understand the importance of IA, the next logical step is to want to measure the results of IA efforts.