Whether you hire a dedicated IA professional, or just sort of let IA happen on your projects, if you’re designing things with content, you’re using IA.But while you can just kind of “let the content happen,” in whatever way seems to make sense for your project at the time, a well-thought-out, well organized structure for your content can make your site infinitely more usable for your end users.While not every project can have a dedicated IA, understanding the basic principles behind good information architecture can go a long way toward making sure your site’s content is as easy to access and use as possible. It’s how the content on a website, intranet, online community, or other digital space is organized and labeled.[pullquote]The ability to create an information structure that makes it easy for users to find what they are looking for is key for any information architect[/pullquote]Further, it’s the art and science of organizing and labeling those digital properties. The ability to create an information structure that makes it easy for users to find what they are looking for is key for any information architect. They need to have a firm grasp on how users are likely to access the information on your site, app, or intranet. They also need to have a good grasp on how to label and organize the information those users will want to access, in a way that is logical and rational.Finally, there is the information architecture community, which aims to bring the practice of design and architecture to the digital landscape. They need to make sure that the designers are providing for proper organization of the content. They also need to make sure that the technical team is properly executing those designs.In addition, they may need to act as a liaison when issues are encountered by one team or another that affect how the content can be served to the end-user.An information architect is also in charge of figuring out how a project’s information is to be organized and labeled to best suit the needs of the end user. Principles of Information Architecture Dan Brown has been practicing information architecture for more than twenty years, and has laid out eight principles of IA that are a great place to start when learning what it takes to create solid content architecture for a project. His Eight Principles of Information Architecture (PDF) lays out a theoretical framework for the IA industry, and makes the following assumptions: that the IA’s main focus is on the structure of information first, and the design of the actual user interface second (if at all); that the IA understands how people actually use content and how the structure should function to support that; that the IA grasps the range of content and functionality on a project and how that needs to be structured. Listing out all of these content types and how they relate to one another is the first step in devising a plan to best deliver the information on a site. Give them the information they need to have an idea of what they can expect to find as they delve deeper into your site, no more, no less (this is called progressive disclosure).By limiting the information they see at any one time, you allow your user to better absorb what they’re seeing. Use tools at your disposal to guide your users through your content in a way that makes it feel accessible and easy to use.The main concept here is to not overload your user by trying to cram every bit of information on a single page. Principle of exemplars Describing the content within a category of information via example makes it easier for your users to understand what they’re getting. This makes it easy to immediately identify the correct category, especially if you’re not exactly sure what the category in question might be called.This principle is a bit harder to use in some scenarios, depending on the type of content you’re providing. It also means every page should include at least top-level navigation, as well as navigation to related pages.There are two major avenues that visitors will access interior pages of your site f