The way content in a digital product is grouped, labelled and linked so users can find what they need and always know where they are.
Every digital product holds content: pages, screens, items, settings, help text, and someone decides how all of it is grouped.
That grouping, labelling and linking work is called information architecture, and it happens whether you plan it or let it happen by accident.
Weak architecture shows up as a user who knows the thing is in there and still cannot find it, which irritates people more than the thing being missing.
Labels are part of the structure, because a menu called "Resources" hides what a menu called "Past papers" would show.
Settle the structure before you wireframe, or you end up with a tidy drawing of the wrong idea.
Card Sorting Lets Users Group It For You
In a card sort you write each piece of content on its own card and ask users to push the cards into groups that make sense to them.
An open sort lets them name the groups themselves, which hands you the words real users use.
A closed sort gives them your group names and tests whether your labels actually mean anything to anyone else.
Run it with six to ten people one at a time, and photograph each finished layout before you sweep the cards up.
Hunt for the cards that land in a different pile for every person, because those are the items that will get lost in the built product.
Activity
Write the 25 main things your product holds on separate index cards, one item per card.
Ask five people to sort them into piles and name each pile in their own words.
Photograph every sort, then count how often any two cards ended up together across all five people.
A Site Map Puts the Whole Product on One Page
A site map is a tree diagram with home at the top, main sections on the row below, and individual pages hanging off those.
Draw it after the card sort so the tree matches how users grouped things, not how your files happen to sit in a folder.
Number the levels: home is level 0, a main section is level 1, a page inside a section is level 2.
Count items on each row, since a level with eleven equal branches is usually two levels pretending to be one.
A site map is easy evidence for criterion B, and once it exists the navigation design nearly decides itself.
Hint
Sticky notes on a wall beat software for a first site map, because moving one takes a second.
Use one colour per level so the depth of the tree is visible from across the room.
Photograph the wall at the end of each session and date the photo for your folder.
Depth Against Breadth: Both Sides Cost You Something
A broad, shallow structure puts many options on one screen with few levels underneath, so users scan a lot and tap little.
A narrow, deep structure gives few options per screen and many levels, so users tap a lot and read little each time.
Somewhere around seven to nine options a menu stops being scannable, and on a phone that ceiling drops further.
Depth hides things, and a page sitting at level 5 is effectively invisible unless a search box digs it out.
Most phone products land on three or four levels with five to seven main sections, which is a compromise rather than a law.
Example
A school site with 40 pages could show 40 links on the home page, which is broad and shallow and impossible to scan.
The same 40 pages could sit five levels down under Parents, then Information, then Policies, which is narrow, deep and where content goes to die.
Five sections of eight pages gets a visitor to any page in two taps.
Navigation Patterns: Pick the One Your Map Points To
A top bar lays three to five main sections across the top of the screen, which works on a laptop and runs out of room on a phone.
A hamburger menu hides the menu behind a three line icon, which buys space and costs discovery, because hidden sections get opened far less often.
A tab bar sits along the bottom of a phone screen with three to five labelled icons, all inside thumb reach, and highlights the one you are on.
A breadcrumb is a trail such as Home, then Fiction, then Science fiction, telling users where they are and giving them one tap back up a level.
A search box rescues users who think in words rather than categories, but it never repairs a structure that is wrong.
Choose the pattern from your site map, since a product with two sections has no business hiding them behind a hamburger.
Three Clicks Is a Guide, Not a Rule
The three click idea says any page should be reachable within three clicks or taps from home.
As a nudge it earns its keep, because counting clicks makes you notice the page you buried at level six.
People happily click five or six times when each click feels like progress, and abandon on the second when it does not.
Confidence is what actually keeps them going: clear labels, a visible sign of where they are, and an obvious way back.
Run it over your site map as a check, then write in your folder where you broke it and what you got in return.
Active recall
What three jobs does information architecture cover?
What does an open card sort tell you that a closed sort cannot?
Give one cost of a broad shallow structure and one cost of a narrow deep one.
When is a hamburger menu the wrong choice?
Why is the three click idea a guide rather than a rule?