JDA: Information Architecture
I had the opportunity to work on the JDA.com redesign working for Lane Terralever. This project presented the unique challenge of taking a site that had over 3,300 pages of content and reducing it to under 200. In order to accomplish this, the goal was to flatten out the information architecture of the site utilizing a search based architecture. The backbone of the site is a central repository of content called the Knowledge Center. Because this site was being built on Sitecore (an enterprise CMS) we were able to pull relevant content onto the various landing pages based on tags.
Another challenge of designing the IA for this site was the challenge of designing for a CMS. There are multiple stakeholders who are responsbile for producing content, and in order for the content to not break the design, we took a modular approach to building pages. Instead of building page layouts, we built basic modules that could be used like Legos to compose pages. This approach gives the client the flexibility to build as many pages as they need, without locking them into certain layouts.
The final unique aspect of this project was the decision to not build comps for all of the pages. Instead, we did a comp for the home page, and then did visual design for each of the modules. After the client approved the visual direction of the home page and the modules, we built out a front end module library which can be viewed HERE
