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The Craigslist home page (see figure 3) is an example of bad IA. While there is quite a bit of information provided and a useful search bar, that is about all that there is. The lack of images and white space cause a blur effect on the page. Creating a larger page with spaced out information may be more effective here.
Utilizing and Implementing Information Architecture
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One very simple and easy method of implementing IA is using a method called card sorting (see figure 4). While not always requiring physical cards, it is a method of outlining the information you want on your site and organizing it as logically as possible.
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Another method of laying out the content of a website is to create an information flow tree (see figure 5). Like card sorting, this helps visualize and break down the content and paths of a website, allowing you to effectively organize and group information in an easy-to-understand way.
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Take the YouTube home page and video thumbnails for example (see figure 6). If the title of a video was displayed without a corresponding image, many users may not be interested in navigating to the video without a visual preview of the content of the video.
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