Information architecture vs navigation
Nielsen Norman Group draws a clear line. Information architecture is the structure, meaning how the site organizes and labels content behind the scenes. Navigation is the menus, links and buttons people use to move through that structure. You design the structure first, and the menus follow.
The three decisions IA makes
- InventoryList every piece of content the site needs.
- GroupSort it into sections the way customers think.
- LabelName each section in your customers' words.
Organize by how customers think
Owners often organize by how the business runs internally. Customers think in problems and services. A clinic might group by department. Patients look for a treatment or a symptom.
Card sorting helps here. You give real customers cards with your topics and ask them to group and name them. Nielsen Norman Group describes it as a way to learn people's mental models. Even five to ten customers reveal the obvious mismatches.
Good example. A home services company groups pages as Heating, Cooling, Plumbing and Electrical, with each service page under its group.
Bad example. The same company groups pages as Residential Division, Commercial Division and Solutions, so a homeowner with no hot water has to guess.
How to test it
- Ask someone to find a specific service and watch them try.
- Check search data for pages people look for but cannot find.
- Look for pages with no links pointing to them.
- Check that the same page never appears under two names.
Nielsen Norman Group recommends testing findability with tasks like these before launch. Read what a sitemap is in web design for how we document the structure. Our web design projects settle the architecture in discovery.