Section 11.3. From Research to Strategy

11.3. From Research to Strategy

A good information architect starts considering possible strategies for structuring and organizing the site before the research even begins. During the research phase, throughout the user interviews and content analysis and benchmarking studies, you should be constantly testing and refining the hypotheses already in your head against the steady stream of data you're compiling. If you're really committed (or ready to be committed, depending on how you look at it), you'll be wrestling with organization structures and labeling schemes in the shower. By the way, that's a great place for a whiteboard!

In any case, you should never wait until the strategy phase to start thinking and talking within your team about strategy. That's a given. The more difficult timing issue involves deciding when to begin articulating, communicating, and testing your ideas about possible strategies. When do you create your first conceptual blueprints and wireframes? When do you share them with clients? When do you test your assumptions in user interviews?

As usual, there's no easy answer. The research phase exists to challenge your (and everyone else's) preconceived notions regarding content, context, and users. You need a structured methodology in place to create the necessary space for learning. However, you'll reach a point in the research process when you begin to experience the law of diminishing returns. You're no longer learning anything new by asking the same questions in open-ended user interviews, and you're anxious to flesh out one or two hierarchies and start introducing your structures and labels to users, clients, and colleagues.

Whether or not the timing corresponds with the formal project plan, this is the point when you move from research to strategy. The emphasis shifts from open-ended learning to designing and testing. While you can continue to use research methodologies as you move through this phase, your focus should shift to articulating your ideas through visuals (conceptual blueprints and wireframes), sharing those visuals with clients and colleagues in strategy meetings, and testing your organization structures and labeling schemes with users.