The architecture of the site is the core to defining user tasks.

It is tempting to skip over the architecture and research, go right to all the pretty pictures, and design. However, if a site does not have a clear navigation than all you have is a useless “stuff” with pretty pictures and really, who wants that (okay artists like pretty pictures but they also want to make a living and market their art work right?)

Information architecture is the solution to a good and useful user interface.  It is important to think about how content or information is used and lives.  In simple terms, it is essential to define the content as a living source that breathes, eats and grows.  The architecture than captures the living lifecycle of the content and places it into a logically structure. This structure in turn supports a website so that it may grow with the needs of an organization well at the same time supporting the organizational culture and mission.

The outcome is a systematic description of a content lifecycle as it pertains to a product, service or culture.  This understanding is the foundation for creating a creative yet complex weave of functional solutions to many common website problems.

Common website problems:

• transparency
• communication
• learnability
• ease of use

A well-designed architecture eliminates these common problems and begins to build the path for the designers and developers to communicate.  In turn, this means building a structured database and navigation that can support and market all the pretty pictures. (This makes the artist happy).

Good resource to check out to learn more about information architecture:

• Findability - by Peter Morville