project notes - Concept Site Relaunch Institute for Information Architecture (IIA) The Institute for Information Architecture (IIA asked) me unexpectedly during one of the last EURO IA conferences saying that a concept for a
relaunch the global develop the Institute's website . The aim of the project was the new website more geared to the business scope of the IIA members and a stronger service orientation.
I was excited about the confidence for a project with many international information architects (15 languages) as the main target group would be something quite different. Back in Germany, I began to realize that this would be quite a challenge - especially as the expectations of a new website by the members (all information architect) is very high. Finding a good solution for multilingual, global alignment was only as an aspect that made the project exciting (See also:
lecture on "Global IA" - by Peter Van Dijck ).
To put it briefly to the point - we have it (a few months later) managed happily with the relaunch 
to develop a new digital solution the interests of the institution that brings its members closer together again (Score: High customer satisfaction). The site must now be continuously developed, however, to live the service concept further - this is an important part of the concept (the Roadmap). I personally can say that I did the work with all parties involved a lot of fun!
How was the project's history?
the saying goes "The journey is the reward - in this case were mainly the following classic IA-solving methods (in iterations) is used to support the communication of all stakeholders optimal:
Interviews
- With interviews were collected user requirements, which were clustered in a mind map and evaluated
Content Inventory - As part of the content inventory, all captured in the structure located content. The content owners and content sources gave it us a good sense of who was responsible for the recent website.
Use Cases - In a use case diagram and use case templates have been described in the main application comes within an average granularity.
Global Mental Model - - The Global Mental Model (described in Part I ) was used as a means of communication between all stakeholders to the Business objectives of the Institute with the user requirements to balance and to achieve a common commitment to the concept.
- Sitemap - The first map was the actual state (goal: recognition of content patterns) from. From the experience of all deliverables in the flow developed a new map with an optimized navigation structure was developed. The important thing was the support of the mental model of the Institute's members.
- wireframes - The wireframes was primarily due to the iterative optimization of the user scenarios for (2-3 rounds per Wireframe). I considered together with all project managers the possible "interactive stories" per the application would be necessary.
- Roadmap - The roadmap supports the further development of the website and the best in the future depends on the business model of the IIA. I go to them in another blog post if required in more detail.
- challenges
- development of the Global Navigation - The development of navigation, which should correspond to the global understanding of the members on the performance of the Institute, was certainly a major challenge. I understood early that this could only solve an interesting mix of top-down and bottom-up structure, as an adaptation option the structure to local needs would be critical to success here.
The request cluster from the interviews and the bottom-up thinking here of some European Local Groups contributed greatly to a solution. - Virtual collaborations
- Apart from a few meetings at conferences, the concept was purely discussed at regular meetings, phone and email. The Task Management System Base Camp also helped us to manage the document workflow-oriented.
The right content-related Mass. - One of the reasons for the structural proliferation at the old site was a lack of guideline should describe how much content the navigation structure should follow a particular language and when a reference should be made to the main site (the English site). The solution was a content guide for all voice REPRESENATIVES who support them in their assessment of how much content structure of their language is necessary.
- learning
- Storytelling - A website tells always had a "history of interaction" for the user. Such a history can be read as: "I would like to extend my network" It is important that we tell these stories from the perspective of users and describe. The more we understand this "story" for the user in our wireframes solve, the higher their acceptance of the website (eg an indicator of this: the conversion rate).
- target focusing - early to think about what are the main objectives of a site (eg networking) will help during the project when deciding how far the concept in some cases to go.
Optimal Mix of documents
- Despite the IA used here mainly classical methods helped us and abstract methods, such as the Global Mental Model so could the stakeholders together to agree on the concept. Important in such abstract models is that all team members can communicate in such abstract thinking. If this is not the case, are concrete documents (wireframes, etc.) preferred.
- you have experience with the development of global information architectures? It would be very interested.
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Business Requirement Analysis