UX Design 2020: The Ultimate Beginner's Guide to User Experience by Theo Farrington

Author:Theo Farrington [Farrington, Theo]
Language: eng
Format: azw3, epub
Published: 2020-06-28T16:00:00+00:00

• Labeling Systems

Information architects use labels to convey a large amount of information in just one or a few words. Our brain is capable of associating a cloud of concept revolving around a single word. This ability is triggered to communicate more complex meaning in little space, uniting data effectively, and enhancing the overall navigation as a consequence.

• Navigation Systems

The way people move through the page is the core interest of Information Architecture. When it comes to design the backbone of navigation, information architects deploy many techniques and tools to orientate the user through the content. The overall goal is to help them interact with the product successfully according to the desired outcome.

• Searching Systems

These systems are widely used by information architects on more complex and articulate websites with loads of information. They allow users to search for a specific keyword or information inside the product. An effective searching system allows users to apply filters to the research and provide a result page that helps them navigate through related informations too.

Where to Begin

Information Architecture is a broad field, and there are many other interesting aspects to cover, and it may be difficult for beginners to orient themselves through complexity. What I suggest is to lay the foundations of your knowledge regarding Information Architecture, starting from two key approaches: library science and cognitive psychology.

Library science goes as far as ancient Egypt with the Pinakes of the Library of Alexandria being the first book catalog ever recorded. Over the century, this science has evolved studying different effective ways to categorize and catalog information resources going from books to magazines. As a UX designer, you want to expand your knowledge with elements from library science to form a solid approach to define similarities and create metadata to assign to content.

Cognitive psychology studies how the human mind works and how it processes data. As we will cover later in the Visual Design Principles chapter, most of the design rules we use today are rooted in psychology studies. This is extremely valuable for Information Architecture as you need to know how to make the most out of people's mental models to orientate their eyes through the design. Visual hierarchy and Gestalt principles are a core asset for every designer, as well as some basic knowledge of how recognition patterns and cognitive load work.

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