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Save money and win friends by standardizing your information architecture.

You are a manager of a large website that is not as effective as it should be. Sometimes, it seems like the more content published, the less effective your website becomes. Senior management won't give you the proper resources. They are driving you hard. They want measurables. They want to know what the return on investment is.

Your authors don't want to create quality content. Worse, they have even less interest in adding quality metadata. Staff think your intranet is hard to navigate around, and that there's lots of out-of-date content. You don't even know what customers think of your public website. But you have a gut instinct that it could be a lot more effective.

Which one? Well, you have 15 public websites and more than 50 different intranets. It's a bit of nightmare to manage. In fact, it's unmanageable in the sense that you have few real measurables to judge what is working and what is not. Something has got to change. And fast.

The first thing to realize is that you at not alone. I travel all over the world. I meet managers who are responsible for large websites. Many are in a lot of pain. The good news is that there is a way to ease the pain. The even better news is that you can save money while creating a much better website that is much easier to manage.

Before I tell you how you can do this, let's take a short trip back through web history. Once upon a time -- way back in the Nineties -- the Web was a fresh, new medium. Things were cool. The money flowed. Having a website was a good thing--a necessary thing. It was the hippie period for the Web. It was the age of experimentation.

It was the age of speed and Internet Time. It was also the age of trash and build. Websites were born fast and died fast. The idea of planning and basic management practices were anathema to those rugged pioneers who built your first websites. To them, the Web was almost something sacred. Designing a website was practically a mystical experience that obeyed no known rules. Everything had to be custom-made.

Fast forward to the present. The Web has matured. We've figured out a lot of what the Web can and can't do. Particularly when it comes to information architecture, there are a whole range of standards emerging.

This is a blessing for you as a manager. By centralizing the design of your information architecture, and embracing a standards-based approach to that design, you will:

  • Save costs
  • Reduce development time
  • Make your website much more manageable
  • Create a much more effective environment for the people who use your website

Information architecture is about organizing and presenting content. It's about metadata and classification, navigation and search, layout and graphic design. Information architecture thrives on standards.

Think about it this way: Does the design team for a new airport sit around figuring out what they'll call the "Exit" sign. Do they brainstorm for new words for "Arrivals" and "Departures"?

So, like, let's say you're in a classification workshop. What are you going to call the Home link? Why not call it Home? And what about the About Us section? Why not call it About Us? And Feedback? And Help? Why not call them Feedback and Help?

Every time I do an information architecture workshop, I show people a grid of a webpage. I ask people to place an X where they expect the Home link to be. At User Interface 7 East in Boston, I had 112 people at a workshop and 108 of them placed the X in the top left hand corner.

In Dubai, United Arab Emirates, I had 25 people and 24 of them placed it in the top left hand corner. I've done this exercise many times in many places. I've yet to find a situation where less than 90 percent choose the top left hand corner.

If the vast majority of people who come your website expect to see a link to Home in the top left hand corner of the page, shouldn't you put it there? Makes sense, doesn't it? There are hundreds of other rules for information architecture that make sense too.

The next time a consultant tells you that information architecture is really difficult, and that your problem is unique and really expensive to solve, show them the door. I come across the same basic problems in information architecture design in Sweden, Denmark, Unites States, Ireland, Great Britain, Switzerland, United Arab Emirates, Malaysia.

Standardize and centralize the design and control of your information architecture and the financial controller will become your friend. Why? Because standard designs are more cost effective. They are faster to implement. Standardization saves money.

More importantly, your customers and staff will become your friends. Giving each department or product group the right to build their own unique website may satisfy egos, but it often won't satisfy the customer. Staff don't want to waste their time learning to navigate around 50 different intranets. Customers are not interested in your unique navigation--they're interested in your unique product offering.

Information architecture is about organizing content. The better organized your content is, the more efficient your website is. Centralizing your information architecture around best practice standards makes sense from both a financial and ease-of-use point of view. After all, what is an organization if not organized?

Want to learn more about Content Management? At UI12, Gerry McGovern will present the full-day seminar, How to Design a Task-Based Information Architecture: Essential Tips for Creating a Fast and Convenient Website. In just one day, Gerry will provide you with a solid grounding in task-based information architecture design.

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