Navigation. Part 2. How to Design Effective Information Architecture Todd Follansbee WebMarketingResources.net - Apr 14, 2009

If you design your website well, people can find what they're looking for. Information Architecture is the discipline of organizing and labeling websites so that people can find sufficient information to take the desired action, that is, complete a sale or subscription, or provide lead information.

Simply put, when you have good Information Architecture, visitors will be able to easily find the product they're looking for, along with the answers to any product question that may arise. It's easy to say, of course, but hard to do! Studies have found that as many as 50 percent of visitors can't even find the products they want to buy. By building a good Information Architecture, those frustrated shoppers are likely to become your satisfied customers.

The Product Information Set

Good Information Architecture begins by creating what is called the "Product Information Set" -- the complete set of information needed by a customer to make a "buy decision." Of course, the information needed will vary from one customer to another due to differences such as: job role, personality profile, where they are in the "buy decision" process, level of competition, sense of urgency, etc. The goal, however, is to cover every possible question and let the buyer decide what he or she needs.

There are several steps involved in building your Product Information Set. It's helpful to begin with a one-hour session involving the people in your organization who handle sales, phone calls and e-mail. If possible, include some new, potential customers from outside the company.

Step 1. Build a Comprehensive List of Questions

Start by brainstorming all the possible questions that customers might ask when seeking to purchase one of your lead products. Your goal is to build a comprehensive set of questions, writing each question on a separate 3" x 5" card. Be sure to explore issues involving:

• Shipping and handling
• Anxiety and fears about the order process
• Company reputation
• Product features
• Maintenance
• Pricing
• Warranty
• Return policy

Step 2. Prioritize Your Questions

Next, rank the importance of each card to the "buy decision." Each team member votes on a question's relative importance, labeling each one as "Crucial," "Helpful," or "Not Significant."

Step 3. Information Placement

Next, note on each card all the webpages on which each question belongs, such as: product information general, product information specific, thumbnail or full size photo, FAQ, home page, Alt tag, about us. Many questions will belong in several places.

One question might be, for example: "What if the shirt doesn't fit?" You'd rank that question "crucial". No clothing customer would consider ordering without understanding the return policy. Therefore, you might want to address that question on the home page, the warranty page, in various FAQs, on the return policy page, and on each of the product pages.

For sites with many products, this may sound like a huge undertaking. However, you typically only need to do it for each major product category, if that. Once you have filled out all the cards for a single category, you'll use many of the same questions for the other product categories. At that point the process will go quickly.

Step 4. Lay Out the Webpages

With this brainstorming session done, begin to lay out the pages for your site on sheets of paper, pasting the appropriate questions on every page on which they belong. Title and organize these pages logically according to your best guess. Fortunately, it's easier than it sounds.

Now you have a set of pages with titles, each containing appropriate questions. Organize the pages in the order your "brainstormers" determined that each arises in the "buy decision."

Be sure to include your "review/submit order" page (the final shopping cart page). Pay special attention to the details on this page to make sure you have a good, complete summary of the essential product information for the order.

Step 5. Site Map

With the product information set progressing -- and assuming you've designed your nav bar -- the next step is to build a site map to match the page order you've determined. The site map is the visual representation of your site's Information Architecture, its "structural design." The hierarchy of the site map should match the navigation bar and its submenus.

Group the products in a logical manner, such as shown in the example below. Consider using your brainstorming team to review the categories. Avoid naming product categories with jargon that may be unfamiliar to site visitors.

Below is a partial site map example for a sailboat products site. It demonstrates how a product category and an "about us" page might be organized:

When the site map is complete, you should have:

• A nav bar with submenus
• A set of pages full of product information questions,
• The page layout, that is, the site map

Providing Answers to the Questions

If you are building a new site, now you'll need to answer each of the questions you have gathered. You can use a variety of web media including: text, photos and graphics, audio, video, hyperlinks to additional content, and active engagement, that is, using questions which lead the customer to conclusions or actions.

If you are redesigning an existing site, you'll be revising existing content to ensure that all the questions you raised are answered at the right points in the sales process. Your site map and menus will change as you add new pages to keep the content size manageable. Consider using hyperlinks that lead to more detailed information so you can keep the primary product pages smaller and more focused.

Where the Process Can Fail

Your team has carefully assembled the questions and framed the answers.

You know where the information is. For example, you know that return policies are outlined in the fourth paragraph of the policies page and in question 34 on the FAQ page. The question about "returns" has been handled, hasn't it? No!

No customer is likely to dig deeply for this essential information. And if you have failed to address important issues early enough in the buy process, you will lose conversions.

How to Measure the Effectiveness of your Information Architecture

Until you get objective users to review your site, you will inevitably make mistakes by (a) overlooking pieces of the product information set and/or (b) not placing them correctly. You can avoid such failures by verifying the effectiveness of your Information Architecture. Here are two approaches:

1. Direct User Testing

By far the quickest and most effective approach is direct user testing. Fortunately, more and more readers, commited to building a great user experience, are reporting back on how helpful even the simplest direct user testing can be. It's the only way you'll know for sure that your information set is complete. Fortunately, even the simplest direct user testing can be helpful. Sit down with about five people, one at a time, and ask each to find and purchase one of your products while discussing the experience out loud. Read my article "Usability Testing on a Zero Budget" for more details. If you have to explain anything to your testers, something needs revision!

2. Monitoring E-mail and Phone Calls

If you are not ready for direct user testing, your alternative is to discover gaps in your product information set by monitoring customer e-mails and incoming phone calls. Query as many customers as you can about the site and listen carefully to the questions and comments they raise.

Note that any question a customer raises may have several meanings. For example, let's say your customer asks: "How long have you been in business? Do you have a store? What is your phone number?"

• In addition to the simple and obvious answers ("For ten years" and "Yes, we have a store"), you should infer from these questions that your company lacks credibility on the web. To improve credibility, you should review and improve the "about us" page, testimonials, and probably the home page.
• Similarly if there calls about basic questions which were very prominently answered on the site, you should conclude that people felt the need to connect with a real person from the company before ordering. If this is the case, then expand and/or personalize the customer service and support pages.

Of course, rather than waiting (and hoping) for questions to surface -- then running the risk of misinterpreting them -- the simplest and fastest way to understand these issues is to conduct direct user testing.

The single best thing you can do to improve sales is to make products or services easy to find along with providing easy-to-understand information at the times and locations in the buying process that your customer might be looking for them. Improved Information Architecture will also cut customer service costs, reduce returns, and improve customer satisfaction. Time spent improving your Information Architecture is decidedly worthwhile, and will directly and positively affect your profits.

Todd Follansbee is founder of WebMarketingResources.net. He is a usability and persuasion consultant who has been testing user behaviors on web sites for over 10 years. His methodology for improving conversions recently won a top ten award in Entrepreneur Magazine. For a limited time, Todd is offering a special small business one hour site review and consult for only $125. Improve your user experience and your bottom line. For more details visit here. http://www.webmarketingresources.net/reviewoffer.html