Introduction to Information Architecture | Wellington

Learning how to organise, describe and present the information in your website or app is one of the fundamental skills that makes up UX design. Information architecture is the glue that holds complex digital products together and enables users to navigate and make sense of them.

This introductory course teaches you the basics of designing solid information architecture (IA) for websites, intranets, search and web applications. You will learn what and how to research to identify the elements of an effective IA. We'll cover how to analyse and synthesise your research results. Most importantly you'll learn the basics of designing IA and how to create sitemaps, wireframes and other artefacts to communicate that design. 

Who is it for

• People wanting to learn what IA is all about
  Anyone who deals with online or digital products and needs to understand the basic principles and application of best practice IA design.
  
  
• Designers who want to learn about making their designs scale 
  Web, interaction and UX designers who want a better understanding of how to break down their design elements into information chunks and patterns, and to communicate better with their developers, stakeholders and business analysts.
  
  
• Business analysts and product owners
  Business analysts and product owners who work with designers or have had to take on the role of information architect in a project or product environment. This course will help you understand the fundamental components of what makes up the information design of a website.

What will you learn/experience

• Part 1: What & why
  Where we identify information architecture concepts in modern web design and why it’s a necessary part of software development.
  
  
• Part 2: What makes up IA
  Where we look into the different components of information architecture and how to identify them. These form the basic terms and concepts you need to consider when designing IA.
  
  
• Part 3: How to design IA
  Where we look into the process of how modern information architecture is created, covering common tasks and activities used to create an IA that will work for your users and business.
  
  
• Part 4: Communicating IA
  Where we look at how to communicate basic IA design concepts in order to create cohesive specifications that third parties are able to communicate, implement and test such as wireframes, content models, sitemaps and task flow diagrams.

Outcomes
This course will give you practical understanding of:

• The fundamental components of information architecture to help you design better websites, intranets, search systems and web applications.
• The process required to build good information architecture.
• What the different deliverables or artefacts are to communicate information architecture.
• How to validate and test your information architecture.

Prerequisites
There are no prerequisites for this course, no experience with design, coding or development is required.

What should you bring
There is no need to bring anything but a UX mindset.