Developers are questioning your IA structures. How will you defend your design choices?
When developers challenge your information architecture (IA) structures, it’s crucial to articulate the rationale behind your design decisions effectively. Here are some strategies:
How do you handle feedback on your IA designs?
Developers are questioning your IA structures. How will you defend your design choices?
When developers challenge your information architecture (IA) structures, it’s crucial to articulate the rationale behind your design decisions effectively. Here are some strategies:
How do you handle feedback on your IA designs?
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Wrong assumption! Developers are part of the design decisions from day one. Design isn’t something done in a silo anymore. In today’s world, it’s all about collaboration—everyone contributes ideas and owns the solution. Designers bring in the science: user research, usability KPIs, personas, empathy, experience best practices and more. But we don’t own the problem or the solution alone. If developers are questioning the IA, it means there’s a gap in how we collaborated, not a flaw in the design. It’s not about defending decisions; it’s about everyone—designers, developers, product—standing behind what we created as a team. To align better, let’s call for a Design Thinking workshop, revisit the IA, and hear how everyone sees the structure.
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Here are five key points to defend the design choices of my AI structures: 1. Scalability: The design is built to handle a wide range of queries and tasks, ensuring it can scale efficiently as user demand grows. 2.Adaptability: The AI is designed to adapt to various contexts and user needs, providing personalized and relevant responses. 3.Security: Robust security measures are in place to protect user data and ensure privacy, adhering to industry standards and regulations. 4. Efficiency: The architecture is optimized for quick response times and minimal resource usage, ensuring a smooth user experience. 5. Continuous Improvement: The design incorporates feedback loops and continuous learning mechanisms to improve over time.
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First off, developers if kept away from the design communication will face issues understanding the IA. That's understandandable. The key is to approach these conversations with empathy and a collaborative spirit. Keep IA decisions data driven. User Research: Show them you've walked in the user's shoes. Use insights from interviews, surveys, and observations to justify your decisions. Analytics: Let the numbers speak for themselves. Share data on user behavior, common paths, and areas of confusion. Usability Testing: Show them how real people interact with your design. Highlight any pain points or unexpected behaviors. Listen, Learn, and Iterate. Hope this helps!
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Maybe developers are correct. Maybe not. Only UX research can tell us the truth. If most of the above conditions have been met, I would insist on: - Architecture related to Business Goals Relevancy of choices to measurable business outcomes like increased conversions or reduced churn. Or showing how the structure supports specific KPIs, such as faster task completion times. Or illustrating alignment with broader company objectives (like improving customer experience or scaling the product). - Applying Cognitive Psychology Principles Architecture reduces cognitive load, enhancing retention. Limiting choices reduce decision fatigue. Showcasing past relevant examples of Uses in similar industries.
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Developers should have been an integral part of the design process, so the question is really for poorly-organised teams and the answer there of course is to structure the programme and the team heirarchy so that there are inputs at the earliest stages, as well as waypoints for any course corrections required.
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One thing I have always followed is to involve developers in every step of designing the Information Architecture of a product or a website. It helps to identify roadblocks from developers point of view, thus saving us the time to go back n forth with the revisions.
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If the objections come at a stage when you have already created a range of artefacts including navigation/user journey diagrams, wireframes etc. and not before, something has gone very wrong in your workflow: developers should be involved from the very start and be regularly consulted so you can take their feedback into account, present the results of your research explain the rationale of your draft IA as you're creating it, and reach a consensus based on data, user goals and technical constraints.
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Defending an Information Architecture (IA) structure during a developer review requires a clear, well-reasoned explanation of the design decisions and their alignment with user needs, business goals, and technical feasibility. Here’s how you can effectively defend your IA structure: 1. Highlight User-Centric Approach • Reasoning: Explain how the IA is based on user research, personas, or user journey mapping. Show how it supports intuitive navigation and reduces cognitive load for the target audience. • Example Defense: “The categorization of features follows the mental model of our primary users, ensuring they can quickly locate the content or tools they need.” 2. Business Alignment • Reasoning: Connect the IA structure to key busin
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In this scenario I organise a session or workshop to understand & review the IA with the developers. A session gives me an opportunity to provide more context about the IA, explaining my rationale & design decisions which are based user needs found from the user research or experience with similar user groups. Understanding each other’s perspective and being open to feedback of others helps in creating better IA that everyone is comfortable with. All the while keeping user first while making any changes to IA.
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