But, while the two go hand-in-hand, there are differences — and ways that they support each other.
In a nutshell: content strategy makes IA real, and IA makes content strategy useful.
What is IA?
Information architecture (IA) is how we organise our digital information. It’s the blueprint for your website or digital product. IA defines how information is structured, the categories that information falls into, and the pathways for users to find their way. When IA works, it makes navigating hideously complicated information more intuitive and more accessible.
“Information architects help our users understand what they’ve found, what to expect, and what’s around”
– Peter Morville
What is content strategy?
Content strategy sets a direction for your content across its lifecycle. That direction covers how you create, deliver and maintain content that helps users and meets business goals.
There can be a tendency to think that content = writing, or content = marketing, but really content includes all information presented to an audience across their journey. That’s any written information, as well as images, videos and audio.
Why IA needs content strategy
IA isn’t a strategy. A blueprint for a house won’t tell you how to actually build the house: what materials you need, what steps to follow. And it won’t tell you how to look after the house once it’s built.
That’s why we need to think comprehensively about the ‘stuff’ of a digital experience. If you see IA as just sitemaps, journey maps and maybe some wireframes, it’s easy to skate across the surface of the information. You’ve categorised it, labelled it and linked it. Job done, right?
If you stop there, all you have are well-designed containers. You’ve only poked at the stuff.
A content strategy will give you better tools to make sense of your stuff:
- What bits is our content made of?
- How are they connected?
- If we have to choose, what bits are more important than other bits?
- What tone of voice should each bit have?
- How are we actually going to create all these bits?
- Once we go live, how do we check in and make sure the bits are still working?
Content strategy makes IA realistic and feasible. When you’re designing an IA, it’s easy to get swept up in the passion of the moment, and overspecify content: we’ll have this nifty section that does this and a news feed that we’ll update every 30 seconds and…
A content strategist will say ‘woah, calm down sunshine!’ Do we have the resources to create and maintain all that extra content? What’s the return on investment for this content?
A content strategist will help you see what content is needed and if it’s working.
“Without strategy, content is just stuff, and the world has enough stuff.”
– Arjun Basu.
Why content strategy needs IA
Even a strong, enterprise-level content strategy can stay too focussed on one aspect of the outputs: the information that people will consume. You need IA to connect that content to the end user experience: how does all this content fit into the site structure and user interface design?
That fit also makes content strategy ready to implement. When you deliver a content strategy, clients want something they can pick up and use. And coupling IA with content strategy gives a strategic direction that’s ready to build.
Content strategy and IA: perfect together
Increasingly, I’m seeing content strategists be involved in IA — and sometimes lead it. Now there are many pathways to being a damn good information architect. But what content folks bring to the table is that we can build an IA from the ground up. We start by immersing ourselves in the stuff of what you do, and generating new, human-centred structures from that bedrock understanding.
Whoever’s leading the IA, bringing content strategy and IA together gives you a highly usable piece of work that your team can take hold of and quickly scope to bring your purpose to life.
Get in touch
If you’re facing a big digital project, and are looking for a steer on how content and IA fit together, please get in touch!
