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- We know our users.
Our initial discussions with stakeholders defined who our target audiences are, and some basic research determined what they want and how they go about it. - We know our content.
A content audit has determined which topics we’re keeping, updating, adding, and deleting. - We know what’s right and wrong with the existing structure.
A benchmark baseline tree test has shown us which parts of the existing site tree work well (and should be reused) and which parts perform poorly (and need to be changed). - We have new ideas to try out.
An open card sort has given us ideas about how users mentally group our content and which terms they use.
We can now sketch out some new structures to test. Let’s take a look at the most common ways sites are organized, and some common tactics that can help us create our own trees.
Team-sourcing ideas
If you’re working with a project team, you have an advantage in generating ideas for site trees – other people’s brains.
Different people have different backgrounds, different knowledge, and different biases, and if we share our IA research with them, they are likely to come up with new and useful ideas for our site structure.
When we’re working with a project team, we typically do the following:
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For easy collaboration, we use a shared spreadsheet (e.g. Google Drive or equivalent) with:
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trees
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- ss of GD spreadsheet with team member’s contributions.
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Using a shared spreadsheet means that we don’t have to email spreadsheets to each other, and each person can “peek” at what others are doing to help them get going.
Roughing out alternative trees
When we “rough out” a site tree, it means that we create a quick-and-dirty site structure in an hour or less.
The point of this is to do the minimum work to convey an idea to others, so we can then decide whether it’s worth fleshing out enough to test. We don’t want someone to spend an entire day creating a detailed site tree, only to have the team decide that they’re going a different direction.
To rough out a site tree:
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- ss of rough trees
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Next: Picking candidates to test Common schemes to organize sites