Information Architecture for the Small Site - part 2

Now comes a second critical point in Information Architecture - choosing the lables for those piles. These will be what the user sees when they look at the website's main menu, and those labels must communicate cleanly and clearly what the user will discover if they make any particular click.

Words are funny things - we think we all mean the same thing when we use the same word, but that's not true -- and it's especially untrue when you go international.

DELIVERY or SHIPPING
For example, working with a UK website to help increase their US business, I found that they were using the word "Delivery", but in the US it would be called "Shipping". When a third party is involved, that's not delivery anymore in the US. Pizzas get delivered, but web orders get shipped.

To a US customer, "Delivery" sounds like you're going to get a bunch of the boys together and drive the company truck right over to the customer's front door. If the site is obviously a UK business, that might create the feeling in a US visitor that you don't do international orders.

That's just one small, slightly "off", note. But if those slightly "off" notes build up, then you've got a confused visitor who will probably leave. And the wrong notes don't need to be US/UK problems, they can just be labels that are not well understood by some percentage of people -- regional differences, levels of education, or just individual quirkiness.

A NEW KIND OF CARD SORT
So here's an approach to choosing your menu labels that can avoid some of the problems ahead of time.

You've already got your content written down on index cards, and all separated into piles in Part One. Now take another group of clean cards and write your proposed labels on them, one menu label per card. Then find someone will to help you out. Shuffle up your content cards, and ask your helper to put each content card in a pile by it's appropriate label card. Listen for their comments and watch for any hesitation -- and don't give hints, just take notes!

It's best to use a couple of helpers at different times, but even one run-through will usually give you valuable feedback. Most likely, you'll end up with some label changes. So test those new labels the same way and keep those card sorts going until you have a set of labels that work -- that create unambiguous names for the piles of content you created.

You may end up moving some content to a different section. You may end up needing to create a completely new separation scheme for the piling up your content. But in the end, you should have some very clear and highly usable labels for your main menu.

BE CONSISTENT
There are different styles used in creating menu labels, and there is no one right way. But one of the important issues to resolve is whether you will use phrases or single words. In most cases, you want labels that are roughly similar in length - it makes the menu easier for the eye to scan.

Similarly, try to use the same parts of speech for labels. After all, these are supposed to be sections of roughly equal importance -- so labeling some with nouns and some with verbs and yet others with full phrases often looks poorly structured, or even coherent.

Look at your label choices as a whole unit - your visitors certainly will. Do they accurately represent what the website is all about?

TELLING A STORY
For one site I created recently, I created menu labels that took the visitor through a progression of approach to the business involved -- it was as if the menu told a story, literally.

I used longer phrases than I do most of the time, and one quick read-through told the visitor how to learn the whole story of the business, from why they existed to what they could do for you and how to get involved. That particular site is thriving right now, so it looks like it was a good choice in that case. In another case, it might just look forced, but this was offering professional instruction in a cutting edge discipline. So the visitor needed some motiveation, then education, and then finally conversion.

I wasn't sure about that "story telling" approach to a menu, because as we all know a website is not really a linear progression like a print piece. So what might be the effect of creating a very linear overlay on the website's content?

Well, in this case, with clear menu labels and multiple location cues on every page, the visitor who first arrives in the middle of things could quickly get their bearings -- and the stats for the site show that this is true.

CALLS TO ACTION
Menu labels can also include "calls to action." I've learned that main menu labels like "Register Here", "Learn About XYZ", or "Subscribe to our Newsletter" can be extremely effective in getting the all important conversion -- so much so that I often make sure to save one of my seven spots for an important call to action. Yes, that only leaves me with six categories for all the rest of the content, but the results are where it's at.

Choosing menu labels with care is equally as important as how you slice and dice the content in the first place. Do it well and you create a website that looks easy to deal with, easy to "wrap your brain around" -- even if there are actually great complexities being communicated.