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Published: March 5, 2012
“[Creating] an IA maturity assessment tool … helps to quantify IA solutions in a more tangible and actionable manner.”
within the information architecture (IA) vertical of the DSIA Research Initiative’s UX Design Practice Verticals,
shown in Figure 1, to create an IA maturity assessment tool. The
benefit of this method is that it helps to quantify IA solutions in a
more tangible and actionable manner.Figure 1—UX Design Practice Verticals
These UX design practice verticals were the product of
an IA exercise that charted the primary activities of eight unique forms
of practice that play out in any comprehensive UX design project—large
or small. Information architecture is one of those practices. It’s
possible to arrange the following six tiers of the IA practice
vertical—which together make up the primary areas of interest of
information architecture—in a way that permits the quick evaluation of a
site’s IA maturity:
- information navigation
- information organization
- information relationship
- IA management
- IA strategy
- IA research
By placing the first three of these IA interests on a
Y-axis and the remaining three along an X-axis, we can produce a
baseline chart like that in Figure 2. This chart immediately suggests
that, when creating a solution for navigation, information organization, and anything that pertains to enabling information relationships, we should measure all three against a strategy, efforts around managing an information architecture, and research that monitors patterns in information and user behaviors.
For example, as Figure 2 shows, thinking about
navigation for a domain of information involves more than planning the
pathways (A)—it means thinking about how to manage (B) the navigation
over time and what periodic research (C) will be necessary to gain
insights into the pathways that you’ve created.
Once you’ve considered all three of these aspects of
your solution for navigation, you can demonstrate that you’ve thoroughly
examined the navigation for your site. You should then apply this level
of due diligence to organization and relationship.
However, the actual methods that you employ in assessing each column
determine the maturity of your site’s information architecture.
Boolean Criteria for Measuring IA Maturity
In my research, I’ve explored two sets of criteria that enable an IA maturity assessment. My first approach uses a more formal set of attributes. It goes into theoretical tangents that would put most of you to sleep. So I think I’ll pass on that one. The second approach uses Boolean-based criteria that consist of four basic values. Even though this second set is less rigorous in nature, it correlates well enough to its formal counterpart to offer valuable insights. The Boolean criteria for measuring IA maturity that I’ll review in this column are as follows:- None—Nonexistent (0)
- Constrained—Limited and/or static in nature (1)
- Approaching—Somewhere between constrained and flexible (2)
- Flexible—Broad and/or dynamic in nature (3)
Performing an IA Maturity Assessment
Let’s see how we can apply a maturity assessment to an information architecture that is based on these Boolean criteria. Our fictitious subject: the pizzeria startup of a pizza-loving software programmer and data analyst.
To inform the selections on their menu and their
business model, the analyst performed a study to understand local
preferences for pizza. Her study showed that typical pizza consumers in
their market eat four basic types of pizza. Having this knowledge helped
them to prioritize what to include on their menu.
Unexcited about creating sandwiches or pasta dishes and
understanding the difficulty of trying to predict the inventory for a
large menu, the software programmer—who sees the world in smaller
pieces, as he became accustomed to doing in the lean software
development culture at his former job—realized that their business model
needed some refining. So, he applied lean thinking, drastically
slashing their large proposed menu down to just the four basic types of
pizza that they discovered customers would prefer through their
research. If they find there is demand for additional options, they can
add them to the menu in the future. This strategy greatly reduced the
operations-driven nature of their business and allowed them to get to
market quickly. They consequently named the pizzeria after their new
philosophy: Lean! Pizzeria.
The two owners hired a digital strategy firm to capture the essence of their model and produce a static Web site as soon as possible. Sound familiar?
The objectives for the site were just as lean as the owner’s innovative menu:
- Allow customers to view and select one of four types of pizza.
- Allow customers to view and select a soft drink.
- Allow customers to place orders with the pizzeria via text message.
- Require users to provide their contact and address information.
The resulting desktop Web version of their site might
look like the mid-fidelity wireframe shown in Figure 3. At this point,
we can begin our IA maturity assessment.
Figure 4 demonstrates that, overall, the demands on the information architecture for the desktop Web site are fairly low.
Figure 4 assesses IA maturity from the viewpoints of strategy, management, and research, as follows:
Strategy
- As the Strategy column in Figure 4 shows, the strategic approaches for navigation and information organization are limited and static. If a content management system (CMS) were in place, it would most likely raise the rating because of the potential flexibility the CMS would offer. For now, navigation and organization each receive a maturity score of only 1.
- The strategy for information relationship, however, is more dynamic because it allows customers to customize the quantity for a pie or soft drink in their order. As a result, the assessment for strategic maturity around information relationship scores a 2. However, this is a very low 2, partly because this behavior is modifiable only by editing the code rather than managing it through a CMS.
- Overall, the information architecture scores 4 out of a possible 9 for strategic maturity.
Management
- Referring to the management column across the board, the management of the information architecture is primarily a manual effort, limiting its flexibility from the perspective of automated tasks—for example, controlling navigation with a taxonomy engine that is connected to a CMS. This could change once the site uses content management.
- As a result, the management maturity of the information architecture is 3 out of 9.
Research
- The site exists on a hosted platform that provides basic metrics and path analysis for research. These prepackaged metrics will be useful to the owners, but of limited benefit because there’s no customization of analytics. So, the research of navigational patterns within the information architecture scores only a 1 for maturity.
- Research to improve organization and information relationship is nonexistent. The reports don’t provide statistics on actual orders—like pie size and quantity—or time of day. Doing this would require additional coding and greater integration with the hosting company’s analytics tool. Since the site’s analytics don’t provide insights about the information architecture’s organizational and relational fortitude, the organization and relationship data points both receive a 0 for their maturity.
- In the end, the maturity of IA research receives the lowest score, only 1 of 9.
“The mode through which information appears
should not require a separate information architecture, only an
expansion of informational attributes within the existing information
architecture.”
Now, let’s take a look at the mobile version of the Web
site, which is shown in Figure 5. In assessing an information
architecture, the mode through which information appears should not
require a separate information architecture,
only an expansion of informational attributes within the existing information architecture. As a result, just as a digital strategy would most likely require a cross-channel user experience plan, a single information architecture should hold together the desktop and mobile modes of interaction. Knowing this, we can assess one more additional aspect of the navigation strategy for the Lean! Pizzeria information architecture.
One element of the information architecture’s
navigational construct is that it’s responsive—the sequencing of the
link nodes that support navigation changes according to the mode or device.
Notice how, in the desktop mode shown in Figure 3, the global
navigation in the upper-right corner includes three items, but for the
mobile mode, they are all suppressed, and there is only a Help link. This dynamic behavior in the navigation raises the maturity of the navigation strategy to a 2, as shown in Figure 6. However, similar to the relationship strategy score, this is a very low 2.
Notice how, in the desktop mode shown in Figure 3, the global
navigation in the upper-right corner includes three items, but for the
mobile mode, they are all suppressed, and there is only a Help link. This dynamic behavior in the navigation raises the maturity of the navigation strategy to a 2, as shown in Figure 6. However, similar to the relationship strategy score, this is a very low 2.
Final Maturity Assessment
“With a Boolean assessment approach … and
the data and patterns it reveals, it’s possible to greatly improve the
analysis and prioritization of information architecture enhancements.”
As shown in the cell in the lower-right corner of
Figure 6, we can estimate that the information architecture for Lean!
Pizzeria’s digital strategy is functioning at one-third (9/27) of its
optimal potential, suggesting not only room for improvement, but also
which types of improvements to explore. With a Boolean assessment
approach similar to the one I’ve just described and the data and
patterns it reveals, it’s possible to greatly improve the analysis and
prioritization of information architecture enhancements.
Summary
“Information architects … have struggled with determining what constitutes an information architecture’s measurable components.”
There is much work left to do to improve our
understanding of the work products of information architecture. As more
professionals choose to practice information architecture
comprehensively, I would expect to see an IA maturity assessment—in one
form or another—become a standard artifact in future IA documentation.
Note—Measuring the maturity of an information architecture is a new area of research that I first explored publicly in my ASIS&T Bulletin article titled, “From Tsunami to Rising Tide: How to Plan for a Successful Information Architecture Strategy.”
That article presented my original thoughts for a domain maturity model
for information architecture strategy. That thinking contributed
greatly to the criteria I’ve used in this column and is central to the
more technical criteria that I have not explored here.
Reference
Davis, Nathaniel. “Boolean IA Maturity Assessment.” DSIA Portal of Information Architecture. Retrieved March 2, 2012.
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