What content strategy tips can help inform your information architecture design?

1 Know your audience

Before you start designing your IA, you need to understand who your users are, what they want, and how they behave. You can use various methods, such as user research, personas, scenarios, and user journeys, to gather insights about your audience and their needs, preferences, and pain points. These insights can help you create user-centered IA that aligns with their expectations, motivations, and goals.

2 Define your content types

Content types are the categories or formats of content that you have or plan to have on your website or application, such as articles, videos, podcasts, products, reviews, etc. Defining your content types can help you structure your IA in a consistent and logical way, as well as identify the attributes, metadata, and relationships of each content type. This can help you create clear and descriptive labels, navigation, and filters for your IA, as well as optimize your content for search engines and usability.

3 Map your content

Content mapping is the process of creating a visual representation of your existing or planned content and how it relates to your IA. You can use tools such as spreadsheets, diagrams, or cards to map your content and see how it fits into your IA hierarchy, categories, and subcategories. Content mapping can help you audit and evaluate your content quality, relevance, and gaps, as well as plan and prioritize your content creation, migration, and maintenance.

4 Test your IA

Testing your IA is a crucial step to ensure that it works for your users and meets your business objectives. You can use various methods, such as card sorting, tree testing, or usability testing, to test your IA with real or representative users and collect feedback on how they find, understand, and use your content. Testing your IA can help you validate your assumptions, identify any issues or confusion, and improve your IA based on user behavior and satisfaction.

5 Iterate your IA

IA is not a one-time project, but an ongoing process that requires regular monitoring, evaluation, and improvement. As your content, users, and business goals change over time, so should your IA. You can use analytics, surveys, or feedback tools to measure the performance and effectiveness of your IA and identify any areas that need improvement. You can also use agile or iterative methods to make small and frequent changes to your IA and test them with your users.