Web Accessibility for Information Architects – Part I

By Glenda Sims on February 13, 2013

This post is the first in a two-part series about Accessibility and Information Architecture by Deque Director of Consulting Methodology & Quality, Glenda Sims. Part II will be published on February 27th.

Information architecture (IA) is the blueprint for web design. The purpose of information architecture is to analyze, organize, and label information on websites so that real people (not involved with the design and development of the site) can actually find what they need. So what does IA have to do with accessibility? Let’s listen to what users say about sites built on purposeful information architecture versus weak information architecture:

Solid information architecture:

Well organized
Good navigation
Intuitive
Logical
Easy to find what I’m looking for and complete my task

Weak information architecture:

Confusing
Frustrating
Cryptic
Inconsistent
Hard to use

In other words, solid information architecture is the foundation for usability because a site organized based on the way users think and labeled (link text, titles, headings) in the vocabulary of the user will, be default, make sense to the key audience.

Now I want you to consider that accessibility is actually just an extreme use case for usability. For example, when a person with a sight disability is missing visual clues and consuming the site with a screen reader, usability problems that exists for all users are magnified and become more apparent.

Everything you do to make your site consistently organized and labeled in an intuitive and logical way helps both the usability and the accessibility of the site.