Information architecture (IA) is essential for organizing, labeling, navigating, and searching information in Office 365, aiming to enhance findability and understandability for users. It bridges the gap between users and content while ensuring effective management and governance of enterprise systems. The document emphasizes the importance of aligning technical capabilities with business and user needs, particularly in the context of evolving features like SharePoint hub sites and Microsoft Teams.

1. Why Information Architecture
is Vital for Office 365 Adoption
and Governance
Kevin Parker, CIP, INFO
CEO & Principal Architect at Kwestix

2. It’s Important to Define Terms
“How many a dispute could have
been deflated into a single
paragraph if the disputants had
dared to define their terms.”
—Aristotle
Very applicable both in talking
about IA and practicing it.

3. What is Information Architecture (IA)?
IA applies information science to designing
structures and systems for organizing,
labeling, navigating, and searching
information. It connects the front and back
ends of enterprise systems and websites.
A goal of IA is to make information
findable and understandable.
UI
Information
Architecture
Information Systems

4. IA Connects Context, Content & Users
Context
Content Users
IA
Corporate goals, culture,
resources, technology,
constraints
User personas,
use cases, needs,
tasks, experience,
information-
seeking behaviorsContent and data types,
content assets, metadata,
repositories, structures
Information Architecture
(4th ed.) is a must read for
knowing the foundation of
IA. These 3 circles come
from Rosenfeld and
Morville originally.
See it at Amazon:
http://a.co/d/6tjn8c8

5. Front End IA: Findability & Understandability
What can I
find here?
Where
am I?
What can I
do here?
Where can I
go from
here?

6. IA is the Bridge Between Users & Content
UA & User
Experience
Content & Data
Repositories
Search
Improvements
Navigation
Improvements
Tagging
Improvements
Organization
Improvements

7. Back End IA: Management & Governance
Can we
manage it?
Can we
control it?
Can we
automate it?
Can we
trust it?
Can we
protect it?
Information Architecture provides structure and flexibility

8. Tips for Architecture & Design
• Know the tech capabilities available to you.
• Creatively link business and user needs to tech capabilities.
• Create the simplest possible architecture:
– Content needs to be able to migrate some day.
– Business will change its structure and labels.
– Consider what feature will be around in 5 years.
– Make it super easy to use and useful—so that it gets used.
• Avoid customization and custom add-ons.
• Do what you can out of the box, and use trusted partner vendors to
provide the rest.

9. Office 365… Is that the number of apps!?
(Apps available for E3 License, November 2018)

10. This infographic and its source site is the copyrighted work of Matt Wade at icansharepoint.com. Used with permission. Link: http://icsh.pt/O365Table

11. New in SharePoint: Hub Sites
• Consistent top-level navigation
• Consistent branding/theme
• Roll-up of content and search
• Can be configured to show content from sites not in that
hub
• Links between hubs can be added to their navigation
• Sites web part (preview of each of the sites, like at
SharePoint home)
• And now we have to govern this, too.

12. How SharePoint’s Organization is Evolving
with Hub Sites
Site
Collection
Subsite 1
Subsite 1A
Subsite 1B
Subsite 2 Subsite 3
Hub Site
Site
Collection 1
Site
Collection 2
Site
Collection 3
Site
Collection 4
Site
Collection 5
Before Hub Sites: With Hub Sites:
New flatter structure, overcoming
many of the limitations in the past.

13. Adding Microsoft Teams to the Mix
• Teams allows users to
connect to more and
more systems and
cloud apps.
• Most of these are not
under your control.
• How do you govern it?

14. Microsoft Teams, IA and InfoGov
• Confusing Bits:
– Teams each have their own site collection, and they are hidden from the
SharePoint admin center (unless you’ve moved to the new admin preview
already).
– Libraries within Team Channels have an option to open in SharePoint, and this
can confuse users going back and forth.
• Tips:
– Teams need to be planned along with SharePoint sites so there is no confusion
or duplication of functionality.
– Provide links between Team Channels and related (but separate) SharePoint
sites or hubs—and vice versa.
– Keep team work in Teams, and use SharePoint for enterprise document
libraries, communications, etc.

15. Some Great Resources
• Official Office docs: docs.microsoft.com/en-us/office/
• Official SharePoint docs: docs.microsoft.com/en-us/sharepoint/
• Rob Bogue: thorprojects.com
• Matt Wade: icansharepoint.com
• Joanne Klein: joannecklein.com
• CMSWire: www.CMSwire.com/sharepoint-office-365/
• My blog: jkevinparker.com

16. Kevin Parker, CIP, INFO
@JKevinParker
jkevinparker
info@kwestix.com
www.kwestix.com