This presentation discusses Information Architecture (IA), how to achieve it on your team, and how to apply IA concepts to your technical documentation.

1. INFORMATION
ARCHITECTURE (IA)
BROWN BAG

2. LEARNING GOALS
1. What It Is
2. How To Achieve It
On Our Team
3. How To Apply IA
Concepts To
Technical
Documentation
4. Helpful Tools for IA
journey

3. TOPICS
• IA Overview
• What IA Looks Like
• (Video: Do we Still Need IA?)
• Information Ecology
• (Video: IA Concepts)
• IA for Technical Documents
• The Four C’s
• Document Collaboration Tool
(Video)
• Document Versioning Tool (Video)

4. INFORMATION
ARCHITECTURE
OVERVIEW
• IA in the workplace is about
helping people understand their
surroundings and find what
they’re looking for.
• In other words, IA in workplace is
the creation of a structure that
allows us to understand where we
are as users, and where the
information we want is in relation
to our position.

5. What IA Looks Like…

6. A successful understanding of industry standards for
creating, storing, accessing, and presenting information.
Storage: Where
do you store
information?
• Single source?
• Cross-reference?
Organization:
How you
categorize and
structure
information.
Labeling: How
you represent
information?
• Tagging?
• Naming?
Search: How
do users look
for
information?

7. Link: https://www.nngroup.com/videos/do-we-still-need-ia/

8. INFORMATION
ECOLOGY
To create these systems of information,
you need to understand the
relationship of users, content, and
context:
• Context: business goals, culture,
technology, resources, constraints.
• Content: content objectives,
document types, volume, existing
structure, governance and
ownership.
• Users: audience, tasks, needs,
information-seeking behavior,
experience.

9. CONTENT IS KING

10. Link: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OJLfjgVlwDo

11. INFORMATION ARCHITECTURE
FOR TECHNICAL DOCUMENTS
How To Apply IA Concepts To Technical Documentation

12. The
Four C’s
1. Clarity – it is easily understood
by your intended audience.
2. Conciseness – it is clear without
excess verbiage.
3. Context –all of the necessary
information is present.
4. Correctness – it is factual,
accurate, follows grammatical
conventions.

13. Clarity:
Creating a
Mental
Model
Mental models are the assumptions
people carry in their minds before
interacting with a document.
Creating a mental model means
anticipating what the reader will
ask.
Methods:
Question factoring: Who, What,
Where, When, Why, and How.

14. Clarity: Creating a
Mental Model (2)
Translation:
Who  Roles,
Responsibilities
What  Abstract, Summary,
Overview
Where/When  Scope
Why  Purpose, Rationale
How  Instructions, Steps

15. VIDEO INTERMISSION

16. Conciseness:
Reducing
Cognitive
Load
Cognitive load is the amount of
information that a person can process
at any given time.
Reducing cognitive load in documents
mean being concise.
Methods
oEstablish a logical outline of your
content with headers.
oChunking: Divide your content into
logical units (sentences, too).
oAdd images/diagrams that illustrate
concepts.

17. VIDEO
INTERMISSION

18. CONTEXT: WHERE
THE INFO LIVES
A comprehensive IA structure
allows us to understand where we
are as users, and where the
information we want is in relation
to our position.
Methods
oInventory your content: What do
you have already? What do you
need?

19. CORRECTNESS: DECISION-
MAKING
Decision making is a cognitive process that allows us to make a choice or
select an option.
Information architecture can help us make decisions by providing accurate
information at key moments.
Methods:
oUsability testing
oDemos/walkthroughs
oPeer reviews

20. REVIEW
What Information
Architecture is…
What it Looks like in the
Workplace…
How to Apply IA to
Documentation…

21. DOCUMENT
COLLABORATION TOOL
Achieving Clarity
Link: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NKCqKbgTKM&t=1s

22. DOCUMENT
VERSIONING TOOL https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-p9oGVy678Q