Apr 2004 - Issue 4
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Content Inventory & Information Architecture
You need not to hire expert Information Architects and Information Designers to do some of the tasks you can do yourself: Planning and taking the control of your content inventory. In fact, knowing and developing content inventory can save you thousands of dollars and frustration caused by hap hazardous content.
Janice Crotty Fraser
Janice is a partner with Adaptive Path, a user experience consulting firm.
Cell Format Conventions
Because consistency is paramount, and repeating work is painful when you're creating a detailed inventory, establish cell-formatting conventions before you begin. As before, this is one reason why it's best to start a detailed inventory by doing a survey. The survey gives you an opportunity to quickly review the issues you'll encounter down the line and decide on a workable strategy.
As I move through the inventory, I mark redundant content and cross-links by shading the link name and URL fields a light gray. I often use cell formatting tricks with color and indentation to illustrate the level under which information falls. For example, I indent the ID and title cells of child pages. In addition, I mark top-level links with yellow across the whole sheet; second-level with green across the first two cells only. Lower-level links I leave plain and indented to indicate their level; and I often include bracketed and italicized hierarchy notes in the URL field.
Filling in the Survey
So now you're done setting up. Making the decisions about which fields to include is half the battle. For surveys, you won't need to gather all of the information you'd probably want in the detailed audit. At least plan to capture link ID, page name, URL, content type, page type, and topic. Because this is your first review of the site, you won't have established a list of values for content type and gauge type yet. Don't worry, that's partly what the survey is for.
Browsing the site and filling in information can be tedious, but it never fails to inform. You want to follow a broad selection of links to capture information about the major site sections. Look at the top pages and a variety of content pages in each section. As you fill in the spreadsheet, you'll be sketching out the major features of the site. While it won't show every page on the site, the completed survey should show every major content component. For a large-scale Web site, expect to spend about 40 hours on a survey.
As you work on the survey, you can make a list of values for the fields that require controlled vocabulary, including content type and page type. When you've finished the survey, you'll have a draft list to circulate among the project's major stakeholders. Together, you can refine and edit the list until it's fairly complete before you begin the detailed audit. Most sites have fewer than 25 content types, and fewer than 15 page types, though these numbers can vary widely.
Mapping the Content
Once I've finished the survey, I take all of the site's major content components, put each one on a sticky note, and cluster them according to user and business goals. If you have a clear understanding of these goals, this activity is fairly straightforward. This is a good activity to do with a small group of clients or co-workers.
Your cluster groupings can be mapped using Visio, Photoshop, or any number of other visualization programs. I show redundancies across groups by stacking the boxes and coloring them differently. With a three-hour working session and five hours of independent work, you'll have a content map to use as a conceptual reference for architecture decisions. Often, this visualization provides a radically different perspective on the site than a traditional architecture diagram would provide. With a good map, information architects can build stronger relationships between content, identify and eliminate duplications, and re-envision architecture with a view toward breaking out of content silos.
Full Detailed Audit
If you're preparing for migration to a content management system, you'll eventually need to take the framework from the survey and perform a detailed audit. Immediately prior to the migration, you should spend several weeks following every link on the site. Assembling a comprehensive listing of pages makes it possible to track those pages in the move to the new system. While this may feel like tedious work, it will give you a deep understanding of the site content. The greatest benefit of tracking pages this way is that you'll be able to identify and eliminate redundant, outdated, and otherwise ineffective content. The detailed audit is a deliverable with a fairly short life span. Once the migration is complete, it will no longer be useful, so don't be concerned about updating and maintaining the file in the long term.
Rethinking Content Structures
You need to know what you have to work with before you can organize it better. The inventory, above all else, helps you get to know the content deeply; this is as important to a re-architecture as understanding user goals and business goals. Make associations across groupings, identify redundancies, and slice it along a different grain.
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