Developing an information hierarchy

• Parent-child relationships
• Breadth vs. depth
• Brainstorming techniques

One of the information architect’s most important tasks is to develop the information hierarchy for the site. Well-designed information hierarchies are easy for users to grasp because so much information in the world around us is organized into hierarchies. A company’s organization chart, the chapters and sections in a book, and a family tree are all examples of information hierarchies.

A hierarchy uses parent-child relationships to organize information into more manageable units. This is illustrated in Figure 1, below:

Figure 1. Example information hierarchy for banking site

• Home is a parent node to Accounts, Loans, On-Line Banking, About Us, and Investor Info.
• Checking, Savings, and Retirement are child nodes of Accounts.

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