How to organize web content: Information Architecture

1. DESIGNING POSITIVE CHANGE

2. Information Architecture
for Nonprofits
What goes where and why
!
Presented by:
Emily Lonigro Boylan, President
and
Sarah Kowalis, UX Architect

3. Share the
conversation
@limeredstudio
@HandsOnTechChi
#ia
#nonprofit
#nptech
#webdesign

4. Introduction
Who’s in the room?

5. Agenda
• How to identify audiences and define users!
• Gathering information about audiences & users!
• Mapping audiences & users!
• Mapping and organizing content!
• Tools we use!
• Examples

6. What is Information
Architecture?
Arranging content bits for the most impact in the most
efficient way for users to do something.

7. Problems

8. Why sites are so bad
• No plan!
• No agreement!
• No clear decision-making process!
• No gatekeeper!
• No user-centric thinking!
• Time

9. Things to remember
• Understand your restrictions
• The Internet
• What people are familiar and expect
• Mobile devices
• Competition: time and dollars
• Standards

10. Things to remember
• Three major ways to emphasize
• Visual emphasis
• Hierarchy
• Real estate

11. How we start:
Understand your users

14. Who uses your site?
Brainstorming!
Card sorting!
Analytics!
Ask people!
CRM

16. How users behave
Three very basic stages: !
Impression!
Collection !
Action

17. Supporters
Members of Our Community
People who will Tell Our Story
Impression Goal: Trustworthy, Reliable, Prestigious
Collection Goal: History, Mission, Programs & Activities
Action Goals: Contact, Give Money
Impression Goal: Trustworthy, Positive, Engaging
Collection Goal: Programs & Activities, Services
Action Goals: Contact, Volunteer, Participate
Impression Goal: Reliable, Unique
Collection Goal: Current Activities, Stories, Data
Action Goals: Contact for interview, Share stories

18. Design & Messaging (branding) = Impression
Content = Collection
Measurement = Action
Trustworthy, Reliable, Prestigious, Positive,
Engaging, Reliable, Unique
History, Mission, Programs & Activities,
Programs & Activities, Services, Current
Activities, Stories, Data
!
Contact, Give Money, Volunteer, Participate,
Contact for interview, Share stories

19. Gathering information
Listening & Research!
• Interviews !
• Analytics!
• Trends!
• User personas

20. Claire is a volunteer staff for the League of Women voters.
She falls in the age segment of 55 to 64 year olds and is a
fairly active online user. Although she has access to a
wide variety of internet enabled devices, she relies mostly
on her laptop to get work done but will also use her
iPhone to access the web and gather information. Based
on the social technographics profile, she is somewhat of a
Joiner but mostly an online Spectator — using the web to
search and gather various data and information for her
work related to the League of Women Voters.

21. "I'm looking for the latest reports, this is the most
important thing to me. I'm always searching
their site when doing research. When I find
other resources, like powerpoint presentations
that are relative to my research, I'll download
them or ask the staff to send these and other
materials."

22. "There is a lot of stuff on the homepage which makes
it difficult to look for things but there are also a lot of
reports there that are out-of-date." She continues,
"Maybe they are there as a reference but it should
just be archived somewhere else. It makes it
difficult to focus on the the information that is
relevant now."

23. Although Claire can identify the website as a
source for data and information for her
research, she is still a little unclear about the
specific services and capabilities this
organization has to offer for nonprofits.

24. User flows
Claire!
Comes to site >!
Searches with main search bar >!
Finds an article >!
Downloads it >!
Looks for similar articles >!
Bookmarks two more in online research tool.

25. User flows
Mary!
Sees a story about the organization TV >!
Visits site on her phone to find out how to volunteer >!
Finds the Volunteer page >!
Reads about the process >!
Fills out the form >!
Gets a thank you page with links to Facebook >!
Checks out the Facebook page & likes it >!
Shares a post with friends.!

26. Organizing that list of content and
user feedback into a site map
Organized by that ranked list of users!
Can be added to, of course!
Each section has a goal or goals!
Sections and users can overlap

28. CTBA Home Page
Home page should focus on
the most current reports.
About
Report Repository
Most of these are PDF links. All of
these resources need some
contextualization and should be
sortable by date. Each of these
reports should have a brief with
some analysis. Users are coming
here for this. Perhaps we can use
the model of a repository for this
as a searchable database of
reports. These include: Reports,
Analysis, Fact sheets & Issue
Briefs, Presentations, Publications.
Individual assets should be
tagged for cross reference on
display.
Resources
This should be organized a bit
better based on target users--
prioritizing media journalists.
Includes: Illinois Budget
Calculator, Action Tips, Glossary
of Terms
Press Room
Updates and Events
Provide weekly or monthly
analysis on current legislation and
point users to resources available
on the site. This could also be a
blog with short weekly updates on
legislation and recent resources,
reports or presentations. These
should be quick updates that
refer to reports and news releases
Contact
Mission, Vision and History
CTBA Services and Capabilities
Sta
Board
Policy Task Force
Funders
Donate
Provide some emotional context
to giving. Who should give?
will their giving make a
di erence?
Employment Opportunities
Volunteer Opportunities
Current Reports by "Hot Topic"
Latest legislation should always
be on the homepage. Past
Legislation and bills should be
archived here.
Other Topics
These could include the Budget, Tax &
Revenue, Healthcare, etc.
Additional Links
CTBA in the News & Press Archives
All press mentions should go here
including Ralph's Columns
CTBA News Releases
Recent and archived press releases from
CTBA for journalists and others.
Video Gallery
CTBA. This may or may not include
videos from CTBA in the press.
Events
Link to Paypal
Annual Fiscal Symposium
Events

35. A note about testing
at this stage.

36. A few things we do all the time
Include contact information on the top level and/or
in the footer. Test to make sure phone numbers
can be dialed from a phone.!
Include a shortened mission statement or tagline!
Provide an opportunity to connect from anywhere in
the site!
Search bars usually go at the top. !
Consider mobile limitations first. !
Allow redundancy, but in a non-annoying way.

45. Review
• Identify Audiences
• Organize audiences into user groups
• Establish impression, collection & action goals
• Conduct research and collect insights, data and
information
• Organize content based on user goals and flows

46. Thank You!
Tell all your friends.
!
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