From Chaos to Clarity: How Creed’s IA Expertise Transforms Complex Websites

Websites have become increasingly complex, with some sites offering huge amounts of information spread across numerous pages and sections. While this wealth of content can be valuable, it often leads to a chaotic user experience that frustrates visitors and hinders business goals. This is where the transformative power of Information Architecture (IA) comes into play.

IA refers to the way content is organized and displayed on a website. A well-planned information architecture makes it easy for people to find the information they’re looking for and achieve what they want to do. At Creed, we understand that your website’s IA can make or break the user experience—and your business success.

The Challenges of Complex Websites

Complex websites pose particular challenges for IA. Information overload can overwhelm visitors, making it difficult to find what they’re looking for. Search functionality often falls short, and poorly structured menus and pathways make it difficult to navigate without feeling lost. Redundant content confuses people and search engines alike. All of these issues result in user frustration and, ultimately, abandonment.

A Real-World Transformation

Creed recently helped an industry-leading technology publisher transform a complex, content-heavy website serving information to IT professionals worldwide. Visitors to the site were struggling to sift through multiple technologies, topics, and types of information to find content that was relevant to their needs. A confusing navigation system, inconsistent terminology, and an ineffective search function left people frustrated and looking for workarounds. Their reputation as a reliable source of knowledge was compromised by the poor user-experience of its website. 

Our IA transformation began with a content inventory and audit, followed by interviews with key stakeholders to understand business goals and known pain points. We conducted extensive user research to learn how customers actually searched for information and uncovered opportunities to improve users’ experience. Finally, we workshopped with the client to reorganize site content and restructure the navigation to better meet users’ needs. Our research led to a new information architecture featuring intuitive, user-focused content categories. We simplified the navigation, using clear and consistent naming conventions, and empowered the site’s search tool through a revised taxonomy and tagging system.

Maintaining Clarity

Maintaining a clear IA is an ongoing process. As your website grows, there is a tendency toward greater complexity and a risk of returning to chaos. Creed ensures that our solutions are scalable by developing forward-thinking design systems and interactivity guidelines that help maintain consistency over time. We also offer regular content audits to help our clients keep things organized and user-focused. 

Is your organization’s complex website in need of greater clarity? Connect with Creed to talk about how we can help you achieve business success through better IA.