What is Information Architecture?

Information Architecture (IA) is a design discipline that makes information findable and understandable. IA could be applied to digital or physical products to make them easy to understand and use.

All digital products are made up of information. For instance, Zomato is made up of information of restaurants, Twitter is the information of people's ideas etc. To make these products easy to use, the information should be easy to access and understand.

This can be done by organising the information in an optimal way. For example, Twitter organises tweets in based on what's most relevant for users, they categorise home feed, messages, notifications separately. Similarly, Zomato provides users the ability to search through the information using search, filters, browsing etc.

According to the book Information Architecture for the World Wide Web, there is no single definition of Information Architecture. The authors propose the following four definitions:

• The structural design of shared information environments
• The synthesis of organisation, labelling, search, and navigation systems within digital, physical, and cross-channel ecosystems
• The art and science of shaping information products and experiences to support usability, find-ability, and understanding
• An emerging discipline and community of practice focused on bringing principles of design and architecture to the digital landscape

References:

• Information Architecture for the World Wide Web (Peter Morville, Louis Rosenfeld), Chapter 2: Defining Information Architecture