What Does an Information Technology Architect do ?

Among the professions of the future that are already invading our present, is the IT information architect, a professional who is dedicated to structuring information systems to facilitate the usability of a business system by employees or the navigability of a website or application in the case of users.

We tell you what an information architect does, what are the elements that compose it and what skills are required to develop this profession.

What is an Information Architect?

Study individual elements in an information system or set of systems, to create a structure that facilitates the work of a company’s employees or user satisfaction when browsing a website or application. It transfers the pillars of classical architecture to the digital world, working as a team with systems engineers and network engineers when it comes to large projects.

Its main task is to analyze the existing digital architecture in the system of a company, site or application to implement improvements choosing suitable hardware and software. The decisions you make will directly influence the benefits that the company will obtain because not only the technology sectors are based on digital systems, but currently any company requires a good structure in the cloud to develop their business.

Elements of information architecture

Order: Categorizing the information chronologically has a different impact than doing it alphabetically or by topic in a site or application, choices that depend on the information architect.

Simplicity: The abundance of information around us makes our brain look for patterns to analyze it in ways that reduce the cognitive load involved in processing large volumes of data.

Clarity: it corresponds to the elimination of ambiguities that can confuse the user of a site or application, or to the employees who use a system to fulfill their functions in a company.

Nomenclature: Tags define the headings, names of sections or keywords that facilitate the ordering of sections in the product that works the information architect.

Search: your design will depend on indexed contents, the accuracy of the results and how they are accessed. The professional should use patterns that assist the user in navigating the system, site or application.

Skills of an Information Architect

• Negotiation .
• Detail.
• Self-learning.
• Self-criticism.
• Customer orientation.
• Empathy.
• Clarity of thought.
• Problem resolution.
• Simplification of complex issues.
• Teamwork.
• Analysis.
• Structuring.
• Good linguistic management.
• Practicality.

Information architecture in UX design

Content strategies have a privileged place in digital environments because they influence the success of a business to the extent that they create content that is attractive to the user. The ordering and hierarchizing of data that the information architect works on is linked to the tasks of the user experience designer (UX designer) that must achieve the usability of a system, site or application for its navigation to be intuitive.

The first step in applying information architecture to UX design is to understand business objectives to make the right decisions and put yourself in the user’s place to establish what to look for when it arrives to the system, site or application. It is advisable to carry out a study on the needs, the behaviors and the motivations of the user , as well as to review the content that is offered making sure that it is updated and it is solid.