Information Architecture Lenses: A Quick Look

During our studies, we were introduced to the topic of information architecture. In short, it's about how information is organised and structured (e.g. a website's navigation menu or the product categories in an online shop). It helps users find what they’re looking for. Good information architecture is mostly invisible. You usually only notice it when something doesn't work as expected, such as when a menu sends you somewhere you didn't intend to go.

Because information architecture is such a broad field, you need to look at content from many different perspectives. To do that, we were introduced to Information Architecture Lenses, a concept created by Dan Brown.

Each lens consists of one big question you pose to a specific piece of content. A few examples:

• How do the items in this menu serve its purpose?

• Which one of these items is not like the others?

• How can you express this in simpler terms?

Takeaways

In a group project, we got to try it out for ourselves. Focusing on just one small aspect was harder than it sounds. In practice my attention kept wandering to other things I noticed on the page. But once I got used to it, I found it really handy. When you take in a whole website at once, a lot of things go unnoticed. The lenses force you to really focus your attention.

Where to go from here

You can browse the full set of Lenses here. Dan Brown explains the concept in his article on Medium. You can find my colleague Sira's view on the subject here.