Information architecture IA

Project Description

The Barcelona Design Week (BDW), is a very important event in Europe for design, art and architecture. Every year it brings together many creative and non-creative people in the city of Barcelona. 

Due to the pandemic caused by the coronavirus (COVID-19), the organisers thought of creating a hybrid event. In this modality, a website will help people not to miss the event, whether they are directly in the city or from their home anywhere in the world.

What is IA?

Before starting the project I had an autocratic concept of Information Architecture (IA). I thought, for example, that when creating a website, developers together with clients defined the content of a page, and users, well, just used the page. Luckily I had the opportunity to change this innocent perspective with design of the digital platform for the Barcelona Design Week 2021.

Process

By this time, my level of innocence about the concept of  Information Architecture (IA) had diminished, I understood that not long ago, still clients and developers defined the content of a digital product, leaving out the user, that's how it was done before, when a UX Designer was not integrated in the development of a product. Now we are in another era.

I understood this after reading a few chapters of the book Information Architecture and the fantastic book of Jon Kolko, Thoughts on Interaction Design. Very interesting readings on IA, digital products and their context. 

With this base, the brief and the guidance of my Professor, I started to develop in very structured steps the design of the platform.

The following graphic illustrates the development phases.

Result

The result is a functional prototype, ready to be tested with users and styled with the corporate style guide and UI kit. 

The portal has the information and all the functionalities that the client wanted to provide. The content was organized as the user expects to find it and also labeled as it seemed familiar to them, using their own vocabulary.

The user was always present at every stage of the development of the platform, either on a card with a picture and personal information (personas) or participating directly in card sorting. This is the most important lesson I learned, the user must always be present at every step of the development.

What comes to mind when you think of IA?

I thought that information architecture (IA) is the content of a digital product, basically the labelling and the organization. 

But at the end of the project I realized that I had a wrong and old concept of Information Architecture, where a UX Designer was not involved as an actor in the definition of the IA. The Designer is the one who is in charge of involving the user at any moment, is the one who understands the client's interests, is the one who understands the technical limitations and integrates the user's needs and motivations. That's the designer, that's the guy who listens to everyone.