Best Practice and Strategy

Information architecture for Websites

Information Architecture (often referred to in the industry simply as IA)is one of the most important and often overlooked aspects of website planning.  I'd like to discuss its imporance briefly and give some real world examples of how the process is managed here at Datalink.

Scott Davey recently wrote a blog about Information Architecture for Intranets, but I thought I'd elaborate a bit more by giving some examples of the sorts of techniques that we use for websites before the graphic designers step in.

Information Architecture is a general term for some of the early processes that go into advanced website design.  It is critical to creating usable and accessible websites, but there are so very few website designers that actually specialise in it.  It is actually a field which has only really emerged in the last 5 years.  It is growing increasingly important with Web 2.0.

An an ordinary mockup (typically provided by your average designer), simply isn't adequate any more.  These days you can't afford the arduous task of redesigning your site if you get it wrong the first time. 

A good information design can make or break a website.  It can be the difference between happy users who stay on your site and return to it frequently and users who just get frustrated, stay for a few seconds and never come back.  The difference to your bottom line can be massive.

Depending on the scale and complexity of the project, we employ a number of techniques during the website planning and information architecture process.  Some of them include auditing content, through to focus groups and "card sorting" to analyse and understand the ways that the target audience will interact with your new website.

I'll point out some examples.

Security and Open Source Content Management Systems (CMS)

It is every IT manager's nightmare.  Your website has been hacked, defaced, private and sensitive information has possibly been compromised, possibly even exposing gateways to internal systems.  This can happen to any business and due to the rapid expansion of the open source software industry is particularly effecting small business.

One of the often overlooked when evaluating web software is security.  Choosing an open source CMS, for example, particularly the popular ones can leave you wide open to hackers.    No matter what size of site your company is or how big or small your site is, this is something you should definitely take into account.  Make sure you read between the lines.

Many of our competitors "sell" solutions which include these open source packages.  This offers a price advantage, as they don't have to pay for the software they use in their solution.  They will often choose the most popular systems, because they offer the most features and extensive communities.  In doing so, they forfeit much control over the software that they build their solutions in, lack understanding on how it works and how to protect it from attack and unless they actively update and maintain the software and apply patches (which many don't), they leave their customer's security wide open.  When they customise it, how do you know that they aren't exposing new holes in the software to attack ?  This concerns you whether you outsource your website hosting or host your own website.  Do you really know which system your developer has built your website with and how much do you trust it ?

Having been burnt on my own personal hobby projects by Mambo, Joomla and PHPBB (all open source systems), I can tell you first hand that it is not a pleasant experience when things go pear shaped and you don't know for why.   While I had applied every update and patch available and although I did not customise one bit of code I had both of these systems hacked and it caused me a lot of frustration and pain to get the sites up and running again.  I have also heard firsthand of many of the disasters that happen when uni students and amateur developers whack websites together with these tools.  There is a big difference between this and a professional approach.

There are a few key principles to consider here:

1) If the software isn't secure, then your business is vulnerable
2) The more popular the system is, the bigger the target
3) Unless installations are updated, patched and maintained, they will inevitably be attacked; and sometimes even when precautions are taken

So here are a few tips for selecting a system that is secure and maintainable in the long term.

Accessible Website Design - What's in it for me ?

For many government agencies, website accessibility is a necessary CYA, often reduced to a tick on a box in a requirements spec.  But as I'll explain, it actually means much more and understanding its importance applies to the wider community.

Since the Maguire vs SOCOG case in 2000, several government departments have been wary of being sued for not providing websites that can be used by people with disabilities under the Disability Discrimination Act (DDA).  In an equalitarian world, and with Australia's ageing demographic, this is becoming increasingly important.  Every website should consider users who require assistive technologies for web browsing.  This includes visually impaired users who require use of text-to-speech and text-to-Braille hardware, colour blind users and users who may lack the ability to control a mouse precicely.  With more and more focus on multimedia, websites with lots of audio and video may require to consider the use of close captions or sign language alternatives for deaf and hard of hearing users.  I was born before the Internet age, but I know how pervasive the Internet has become, so I don't know about you, but I find it difficult to imagine a world where I couldn't use the web.

To be accessible, a web developer and web designer and content management system all need to collaborate to produce sites to accessibility principles.  These web standards are defined by the World Wide Web Consortium or W3C under the Web Accessibility Initiative (WAI) and include three levels - A, double A (AA) and triple A (AAA).  A provides a basic level of accessibility, whereas AAA is the highest and most difficult to achieve. 

From a technical point of view, this requires writing semantic markup, Data Type Definitions, Schemas, semantic hyperlinking, ALT tags for images, avoiding frames, CSS and tableless layouts as well as user agents and short-cuts for screen readers.  The Victorian Government has a great online resource in the Accessibility Toolkit.  This stuff is certainly beyond your small web shops.  However at the same time, the cost of buidling accessible websites, due in part to WAI compliant content management frameworks like Freestyler, is getting more affordable all the time. 

Datalink implements this sort of attention to detail to helps future proof websites from changes to technology (such as mobile and convergent devices).  Some notable examples of highly accessble websites include the City of Boroondara, Wyndham City Council and Optometrists Association of Australia.  There are a lot of blogs and resources out there to help build a business case for web accessibility.  Besides the social obligation, there are real benefits which offer great value for money.  It helps you to reach the widest audience possible (increasing your market penetration), helps to bring visitors to your website through website discoverability and search engine optimisation (SEO) and helps content to be delivered quickly by computers regardless of their Internet connectivity.  But these days you don't need to build a business case, just to select the right web development partner who can help you to grow your business.  Afterall, in today's instant electronic gratification, these things are just as important in increasing sales as they are from preventing potential legal hassles. 

And as you and I and our customers get older, we can be safe in the knowledge that websites are being built which we will be able to use well into our twilight years.