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[Content Management Requirements Toolkit]
Content Management
Requirements Toolkit

Our information architecture services: at a glance

We can help you to structure your intranet so that staff can easily find information, as well as advising on metadata issues and improving the design of your search engine. Beyond this, we can coach and mentor your staff on best-practice information architecture techniques.

Information architecture is the art and science of structuring web sites, intranets, online communities and software to support usability and findability. Creating a usable information architecture:

  • helps users to find the information they are looking for;

  • exposes users to additional information; and

  • assists users in making decisions.

We provide the following services to create or improve your information systems:

  • Information needs analysis
    It is important to ensure that business goals and user information needs are well understood and aligned. We capture user's information needs via contextual interviews, discussing their current goals, tasks and information needs in the context in which they work. This method allows you to understand what users are trying to achieve and the important physical and cultural context in which they work.

    Information needs analysis can be done at the beginning of a design process for a new system, or at the beginning of a redesign process for an existing system.

  • Information structure and page layouts
    We can assist you in creating an information structure for your site. We combine the information needs of users, the business goals of the system and the available content with our extensive understanding of site design and information management.

    We work with your team and users to create a site map outlining the overall structure of the site and page layouts for key elements of the site. We create prototypes and undertake iterative usability testing.

  • Metadata
    Metadata is 'information about information' and is essential to the management of large sites. We can help you to identify your metadata needs and create controlled vocabularies that describe your information.

  • Search engine improvement
    Search engines installed out of the box generally do not provide the best results for users looking for information. We can assist you in customising your search engine so the results it provides better meet your users needs.

  • Enhancing content management systems
    Content management systems offer a diverse range of advanced capabilities. By applying our information architecture skills, we can assist you to design innovative ways of managing and publishing content to a corporate intranet.

For all of these activities, we can involve your team and provide learning opportunities. We can also provide structured training for all activities.

For questions or comments please contact the Webmaster. Last updated 06 June 2004. © Copyright 2004, Step Two Designs Pty Ltd, ABN 99 081 019 623. All rights reserved.
Intranet Peers and Intranet Roadmap are trademarks of Step Two Designs.