Part art, but mostly science, information architecture should have little to do with best practices, and more to do with the needs of the target audience. In other words, other companies with successful intranets don’t necessarily translate effectively to your intranet; you need to understand what will work for employees.

Simply put, information architecture (IA) is a method of organizing or classifying information. It the world of intranets, an IA is most commonly represented as a site map or flow chart with the home page at the top, and the major sections or parent groups represented below.

 

Tertiary or third tier pages and sections are represented below those sections and connected by lines (like those in an organization chart) representing the working links between pages and sections.

 

In a recent study of some 56 intranets represented in a new report on Intranet Information Architecture by the Nielsen Norman Group, the study reveals that there are some sections or labels in the top parent group or major section pages that are quite ubiquitous including:

 

  • News
  • Human resources
  • Company information

Nonetheless, what works in one organization does not necessarily work in another. News will ring as meaningful in most organizations but Policies can have a different meaning from one organization to the next; hence the need to understand employee culture and language when developing an intranet IA.

 

Just to give you a sample, here are the major parent or section labels at the top of the IA for five recent intranet clients of Prescient Digital Media (some were developed by Prescient, others represent an IA developed by the client prior to Prescient working with it):

 

  1. Inside company – Our Business – People Place
  2. News – Products / Services – Client Connect – Circulars – People
  3. My company – Our projects – Our company – Individual spec – Specialties – Tools, forms & links – Help
  4. Our Company – Marketing – Bus Develop & Program Mgmt – Employee Needs & HR – Internal Resources – Help
  5. About company – News – How do I? – Employee Central – Organization – Customers – Processes

Frankly, I think some of the IAs and labels are appalling poor. But does my opinion count? What are the best practices that should be applied to these companies and their intranet IA? Or is the employee perspective the most important criteria?

 

The employee perspective trumps best practices every time. I have no clue what ‘Client Connect’ is but you can bet that the client’s employees do. That’s not to say that outside expertise and best practices should be ignored, they should be weighed and considered and used to influence the IA. Nor does it mean that better labels can't necessarily be found...

 

Each of the companies represented by the IAs above range in size from hundreds to tens of thousands of employees, and each represent incredibly diverse industries. Each has their own culture, their own vernacular, and most importantly, a ‘heritage information architecture’.

 

This last point is critical, and often discounted at many organizations by many consultants who want to showcase their ‘expertise’ in IA by reinventing a company’s information vernacular. If every employee in the organization has been using an intranet for years, and has very often used the HR section that is a well-known destination, does it make sense to rename it as ‘People’ or ‘My Work’...? Probably not, but it’s the employees’ decision.

 

There are four key tools for engaging employees to help craft and test and IA:

 

  • Usability testing
  • Card sorting
  • Focus groups
  • Log (metrics) analysis

Using multiple tools judiciously and impartially are tantamount to developing a successful architecture. Collectively, employees know the best IA for the organization (did you know that for the old ‘guess the jellybeans in the jar’ that the average guess of all the guesses is almost always closer than the closest guess? Think about it….)

 

Tapping employee knowledge requires care and skill without prejudice and an appreciation for the unique culture of the organization. An information architecture should principally be driven and designed by employees, with the outside influence of best practices, but not at the expense of common sense and cultural legacy.

 

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