Information architecture is the practice of determining the arrangement of portions of something to be understandable. There are five types of organizing information in IA, which are Location, Alphabet, Time, Category, and Hierarchy. Information architectures are on the websites, apps, and software, even the physical places we spend time in. IA helps people to find what they are looking for easily in the real world and online.
As an interaction designer, I think IA forms as the foundation of user’s experience design and interaction design because it is important for users to know where they are locating while using a product. Not only that, a good content strategy could offer users a comfortable experience when using a product. For example, they don’t need to ask themselves: “where am I suppose to go next?” or “this doesn’t make any sense.” IA is a primary factor that helps a product to improve its usability. If the users cannot understand the context, content, and information arrangement of a product, they will not choose to use it even it has the best visual design.
Moreover, I think IA is the tool to help the product to communicate with the users. That textual information is the key element to give users a basic understanding of what a product is, what it is capable of, or what service does it provide. For example, the social application Instagram has a precise arrangement of contents. Instagram places importance on inter-connectivity. Everything links somewhere. They aim to provide meaningful connectivity and authentic moments rather than a simple photo-sharing platform. How IA helps them to achieve their goal is shown by the structure of content for relevance is clear, hierarchical layers of each post and link, and the focus on user experience.
I thought it was very insightful when you said if users cannot understand the context and arrangement of information they will not use the product or service regardless of its visual design. I think this is very important as many times even I struggle to put my energy into making a beautiful visual design rather than really thinking out if it makes sense to the user.