1. INTRODUCTION TO INFORMATION ARCHITECTURE
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2. What is information architecture?
Understanding what users are looking for and allowing easy access to content and information is the overall goal. It’s all about ensuring that users can get what they came for.
The goals of information architecture:
Organize and label a website structure to support usability.
Connect users to the content and organize information intuitively.
Blueprint the site from a functional perspective to communicate easily with a client and a team.
The information architecture step usually falls within the structure phase of web project production, before you create wireframes, design comps, and prototypes.

3. Information architecture best practices
Research the needs of the audience and users
Identify a clear purpose for the site
Inventory and assemble site content
Assemble site content into logical groups
Create a site map
Design navigation systems

4. Consider your audience
Before you create an information architecture for your website, consider the following:
Who is the target audience?
What kind of user are you trying to attract to the website?
These important initial questions inform the way you structure content and information. You must create the information architecture of your site with your audience in mind.

5. Identify website purpose
Always keep the goals in mind while you’re creating the information architecture.
What are the goals of the website?
What will attract viewers to the website?
How does the purpose of the website influence the information architecture?

6. Inventory content
The content you plan to use on your website influences the information architecture. Consider the following questions:
What content do you already have?
What content do you need to create?
Is the content suitable for the site’s audience?
Does the content help accomplish the goals of the site?
Is the content suitable for the site’s target screens and devices?

7. Assemble content Content and structure are intertwined.
Assembling content into logical groups helps:
Establish clear and consistent site organization.
Facilitate the task of defining the information architecture.

8. Create a site map
Your site’s structure is composed of the categories and logical groups you just created. A site map serves as a bird’s-eye view of the project that enables you to see how the site is organized and how users will view the site’s content and information. The site map becomes a blueprint that shapes the structure of the site during the development process. The site map should show main areas of content and represent all the pages within each section.

9. Design navigation systems
Clear navigation helps connect users with the content on your site. Navigation helps users:
Stay oriented to where they are.
Find where they need to go.
Know how to get back to where they came from.
Make sure to use familiar visual cues and navigational aids as users move from page to page.
Clear navigation also helps your website maintain consistency.

10. Summary
Information architecture is a method to add organization and support usability of a website
Information architecture helps improve discoverability, efficiency, satisfaction, consistency, and overall usability of a website.
A site map and a clear navigation are the key components of an information architecture