The Role of Navigation and Information Architecture in the Ecommerce Experience

Principles of Information Architecture

The designers of an ecommerce site or app should employ the following IA principles:

• Each object should have its own attributes and exhibit unique behaviors.
• Keep users’ choices to a minimum to prevent cognitive overload and improve the user experience.
• On an ecommerce site, add a meta and a short description to each page to provide an overview of what users are about to experience.
• Provide examples to create a lasting impression.
• An effective information architecture should let users navigate directly to the home page, regardless of where they are on the site.
• Categorize the content effectively to help users easily find the exact information they need.
• When categorizing content, use familiar terms.
• Keep scalability in mind when adding more content, which should not negatively affect the user experience.

How to Create an Effective Navigation System and Information Architecture

To design an effective navigation system and information architecture, UX designers must consider the users for which they are designing a Web site or app. They must also understand the company’s business goals, study competitors, perform cross-browser testing, and create a sitemap. Let’s look at this process in greater detail.

• Know your customers. First, identify the target audience for the site or app, then align the UX design with their needs. The process of user-centered design (UCD) also requires creating user personas and usage scenarios, as well as getting feedback from customers.
• Understand company goals. Before devising a plan for designing an optimal navigation system and information architecture, it’s important to understand the company’s goals and stakeholders’ needs.
• Analyze competitive sites or apps. To design an effective user experience for your site or app, analyze the Web sites or apps of your competitors to understand how they’ve enhanced their user experience. Visit and navigate their sites or apps to experience them from the users’ point of view and consider trending UX design practices.
• Create a sitemap. Creating a sitemap lets you to plan how users would access the content on your Web site or app and ensures your information architecture covers all the content you’ve planned. Consider step-by-step navigation that would let users find the content they need.
• Conduct cross-browser testing. It is impossible to manually test your ecommerce site on all the available browsers and devices. However, you can do this testing by using cross-browser analysis tools to scrutinize the behavior of your Web site or app and improve the user experience.

The Four Primary Components of Information Architecture

There are four primary components of information architecture, as follows:

1. Organizational system—This system helps people make sense of the content on your ecommerce site or app. Organizational systems make connections among different pieces of information to create an easy-to-understand structure that helps users understand and navigate to your products. There are three main types of organizational systems: sequential, hierarchical, and matrix.
2. Labeling system—Use easy-to-comprehend words and phrases in labels to help users find the content they need. For example, a Contact Us page should provide users with such information as a company’s phone numbers, email addresses, and the address of any physical store or office.
3. Navigation system—A Web site or app’s navigation system guides users through your ecommerce store, provides engaging interactions with your content, and enables users to fulfill their goals. The navigation system defines how users can browse through the different content on Web your site or app. It should be simple and straightforward and provide relevant information to users.
4. Search system—Searching lets users type keywords to quickly look for known items on your Web site or app and find the various products they need. It provides an alternative means of seeking information for users who prefer searching over browsing by using the site’s navigation system. An effective search system requires an information architecture that comprises well-defined categories.

Conclusion

In summary, the role of the navigation system and information architecture for an ecommerce user experience cannot be overstated. These key components of any ecommerce site or app are critical to creating a user-friendly, efficient shopping experience that drives more traffic, increases conversions, and positively impacts customer loyalty.

A successful ecommerce site or app with an effective navigation system and information architecture reduces cognitive load, increases the discoverability of products, and improves search-engine rankings. Therefore, businesses who are looking to optimize their ecommerce user experience should prioritize its navigation design and information architecture, employ design best practices, and devise an effective UX design strategy. By doing so, a company can create competitive advantage, increase revenues, boost their bottom line, and improve customer satisfaction.