Harder than expectation

To my surprise, it wasn't until one week later that I finally got the document from the client. And the contents seem to be a little clutter and unorganized. Some of them should be defined as functionality requirement, while some of them are more like introduction as whole, and some of them are repeated.  It took some time for me to confirm with the client about what they really wanted to present. I found that they could be very vocal when talking about what they want to achieve, for instance, increasing sales, or providing better online contact method. They also knew well about very specific function details like API installation. But they couldn't tell how they want to organize all the contents.

I started with grouping and labeling. There were over 30 sections of contents, according to their proposal, but of course it would be unpractical if we made a menu following a structure like that. However, dividing a site to 30 pages would probably be working. So my first step was basically categorizing after comprehending the concept of each section, which means, making a sitemap.

My client fully understood that the number of menu items should be limited, but we couldn't avoid debating when things came to a concrete plan. And as the contents they delivered were still not to an end, I was quite sure that there was a possibility of structure-altering in the future. As for me, there is a shackle that I have to accomplish a project during a certain period of time. So I suggested to remove some of unnecessary functionalities, or to replace some with pre-existing plug-in. Luckily we had a final verdict only after a few times of revisions.

By the end of the second week, I was able to finish most of information architecture plan including site purposes, site goals, user missions, user experiences, competitive analysis, functionality requirements, and sitemap. Still it took more time than I expected to achieve this because in reality the client always has different opinions in terms of whatever you can think of.