Week 14 – Making the Case for Information Architecture

Making the case for Information Architecture (IA) has never been the easiest of tasks for even the most seasoned of Information Architects (IA). In fact, this might be the single most important task an IA will have to complete to be able to secure employment, not only for themselves, but for their entire team, which might eventually be for everyone in the organization or company due to heavy returns on investments that can be generated from a properly, professionally designed website or intranet.

As an IA, trying to sell your services and creating a business case for Information Architecture will involve several methodical steps put together by you as a proposal on how you can bring more value than just what is offered by a development team and a graphics designer. I, for one will use the following methodology to present my case:

       I.          Make a short presentation of not more than 8 slides to the each and every stakeholder that will mention and discuss the following deliverables as the outcome of your efforts

                           i.          Site Scope

In your presentation of what the Site Scope brings on the table, you should identify the essential problem your site is going to solve or the opportunity it will afford users. You need to show your understanding of the needs of both the target audience and site sponsors, and articulate a broad, but justified rationale of how the site will meet their needs through its information architecture design. This should bring added value which can never be accomplished by simple graphics design with application development. During your discussion with each stakeholder, you should present a clear cut methodology on how you intend on proceeding with the site scope effort. Typically, in your methodology, you should outline the following techniques:

·       Data collection - discuss the importance of data collection for the site design effort using techniques such as user interviews and questionnaires, competitive benchmarking and stakeholder interviews

·       Data Analysis – discuss and present how you intend to analyze the data you’ll be collecting in the above step and the various data analysis techniques you’ll be employing in this effort like benchmarking analysis and user analysis.

·       Results presentation – you, as the IA should give the stakeholders an afore-taste of the delicious meal they’ll be consuming in the future by telling him how you intend to present the result of you research and analysis carried out above. How you intend to bring out the major problems with the current state of affairs, summarize the results of your benchmarking and present/propose clear cut solutions to take care of the problems you’ll be identifying.

You can even go ahead and tell them that after this initial Site Scope process, if they do not see any value in the project, then it should be scrapped. You should be however very careful here because you just took a very big risk, which can either pay off enormously or lead to the death of your project.

                         ii.          Blueprint

Here, you want to mention and discuss with all the stakeholders how you’ll be present a clear pictorial, as well as literal description of the structure of the site you’ll be designing, something that’s out of touch to a developer or a graphics designer who doesn’t understand how information should be structured on a website.

You should sell the value of the Site’s blueprint by elaborating what it will deliver at the end, which is usually a focus on representing the information organization and navigation of the site, and maybe mention what techniques of labelling you intend to implement on the site.

                       iii.          Wireframes

Selling value for your design with the use of Wireframes can never be over-looked. Your initial discussions with the project stakeholders should definitely involve stating how you intend to create wireframes for the web site or intranet to be developed (again, something out of the scope of a developer or plain graphics designer).

Here, you want to mention how you will represent the layout of the content and navigation for individual pages within the site in the form of a low cost prototype. Discuss how you intend to use this to bring out to the front those pages considered to be complicated or unique, or which serve as templates to other pages.

Using the above methodology and with good presentation skills should go a long way to be able to sell your IA project and convince stakeholders why you, as an IA is needed to lead this effort, NOT developers and graphics designers. However, as an IA, you should do more than the above to sell your project. This will be outlined in section II below.

     II.          Making your case and Selling your Information Architecture

You, as the IA, must be prepared to take the case forward for what you do. Be prepared to change negative thinking into positive since most people still don’t know and understand the value of Information Architecture. You need to be ready for this, not just getting the point across initially, but being able to “sell” what you do on the ground. Hence, you need to be a salesperson at this point in your life to be able to convince the stakeholders to kick off the project.

As a generalization, it’s been found that business people typically fall into two groups: “by the numbers” folks, and “gut reactionaries”. The former require data to help make their decisions. They need figures to rationally consider return on investment (ROI) as the basis of their business decisions. The latter, on the other hand, do what feels right. They trust their instinct and often have plenty of good experience to draw on. As an IA, you’ll encounter, and will have to deal and sell with both types of business people, so be prepared for both. If necessary, you should be able to run the numbers and present the various factors involved in your IA project as a function of cost and convince your stakeholders with these figures.

It’s generally possible to measure the value (and ROI) of some of an architecture’s individual components. For example, we may be able to determine how well users navigate a broad and shallow hierarchy versus a narrow and deep one. Or we might measure how users respond to one way pf presenting search results versus another. If necessary, you, the IA should quantify these values and present to your audience as a justification of your project.

On the other side, the success of the case you present to gut reactionaries often depends on luck as much as anything else, but there should always be that saying at the back of your mind that “we make our own luck”, so you should be able, as an IA to have those words in your mouth that can tilt luck to your favor. One of the best ways to engage and educate such individuals is telling first hand “stories”. You might be lucky your gut reactionary doesn’t have much experience in the subject matter, and when you find this loophole, feel it as fast and as perfectly as you can. Use this technique to put them in the shoes of a peer who faces a comparable situation, feel that person’s pain, and help him see how information architecture helped his situation. An effective story should provide the listener with both a role and a situation to identify with. The role and the situation should set up a painful, problematic situation so that the listener feels the pain and can see how investing in IA can help make it go away.

Making your case as an IA, can and should involve most of the following case-making techniques:

i.                 User sensitivity “boot camp’ sessions” – get decision makers who aren’t web-savvy in front of a web browser. Ask them to try to accomplish three or four basic and common tasks using their own web site (or a competitor’s), and have them think aloud while you make notes of their problems

ii.               Expert site evaluations – quickly identify 5 or 10 major IA problems in a site. This can make a huge impression in a writing presentation or in the context of a sales call.

iii.             Strategy sessions – one to two day sessions geared toward bringing together decision makers and opinion leaders, providing them with a brief introduction to IA and discuss on the company’s strategy and issues with overloaded information.

iv.             Competitive analyses – already discussed above, a site’s IA issues can be riveting when the site is placed alongside its competitors. Always look for opportunities to compare architectural components and features to help prospects and clients see how they stack up. Present these analyses to the stakeholders.

v.               Comparative analyses – compare the existing site or intranet with comparable sites, comparing specific features, such as search interfaces or shopping carts and present your findings to stakeholders.

vi.             Be aggressive and be early – make sure the IA is included in the marketing and branding that comprise the firm’s public face, not to mention the list of services.

Whatever technique you use, consider these three pieces of advice:

·       Pain is your best friend – more than anything else, work hard to identify the source of a prospect or client’s pain

·       Articulation is half the battle – make your clients to be able to talk about their pain and issues, and also be prepared to use the right words to sell to them, the solution to their pain and problems.

·       Get off your high horse – be ready to defuse the jargon with alternative, “real-language” descriptions of what IA really is and what problem it addresses.

Whatever technique you use to make the case for IA, and whether you’re making a quantitative or qualitative case, there must be a checklist that you should be able to follow relevant to your story, answering all potential questions you might get from potential clients and stake holders. As you prepare to make your case, review this check list to make sure you’re not missing any important point. Your typical checklist can be the following advantages and points you intend to present and defend to sell your IA project

·       Reduces the cost of finding information

·       Reduces the cost of finding wrong information

·       Reduces the cost of not finding information at all

·       Provides a competitive advantage

·       Increase product awareness

·       Increases sales

·       Makes using a site a more enjoyable experience

·       Improves brand loyalty

·       Reduces reliance upon documentation

·       Reduces maintenance costs

·       Reduces training costs

·       Reduces staff turnover

·       Reduces organizational upheaval

·       Reduces organization politicking

·       Improves knowledge sharing

·       Reduces duplication of effort

·       Solidifies business strategy

As a final note, which ever points and approaches you use to make your case for IA, keep in mind how difficult this challenge is and be ready to tackle it since IA is still being looked like a new kid in the block and is generally a lot harder to sell that other goods and services out there. Hence, be ready to be that Information sales person.

On the other hand, problems associated with information explosion (unregulated ridiculous growth of information stored in websites and intranets) are only going to get worse as a result of poor maintenance of content and data stores, hence the need for seasoned Information Architects.