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The federal government's focus on clear and understandable writing is supported by www.plainlanguage.gov. The purposes and directives for the site have evolved since its origin, necessitating revision of the site structure. Teams of students and professionals worked through a five-phase framework to organize and manage the change process. Their strategy started with gathering data on stakeholders' priorities and what worked and didn't work on the existing site structure. The redesign team developed several personas representing various types of anticipated site users and their specific needs. They evaluated the collected data from these perspectives and identified real users' top tasks. To organize content semantically, the team developed a taxonomy with four primary facets and built out the taxonomy following standard principles of vocabulary control. Two taxonomy versions emerged, providing site navigational labels and metadata to mediate retrieval. The teams developed, tested and revised mock-ups until the final stage of the effort produced a new site design having an arrangement of text, labels, links and relationships that better supports the site's new mission as the design continues to evolve. INSET: Personified Clusters. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

For Thom Haller, an icy spinout in a new truck and frustration with a user manual raised the issue of perceptual affordance, design based on the perceived needs of a user. An object's design ideally serves its user, being visible and clearcut to avoid error, yet design snafus abound. The vehicle manuels's verbal references to four-wheel drive were circuitous and uncertain, and the illustration was no more helpful. Both failed to provide a direct answer to the user's's question about how to enable four-wheel drive or meet reasonable expectations for guidance. For informationarchitects, usability is primary,delivered through sensible and logical placement of information and understandable terminology.Our job is to make the complex clear, and the need is everywhere. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

To be successful, the process of information architecture should be consistent with the needs, understandings and priorities of the client. The client's existing landscape includes the full context of factors that can impact a project. Any new addition to the set of known influences has the power to derail or at least delay the project. Any lack of shared knowledge and understanding about such elements can undermine work as planned or accomplished. To avoid surprise requirements and unworkable delays, user experience professionals must keep their eyes on the full landscape and be alert to unexpected obstacles. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The government site www.plainlanguage.gov espouses the use of clear and understandable writing in documents developed for citizens. Since its inception and careful information architectural crafting in 2006, it has gone through changes, including a change in responsibility for site maintenance. Recently, a legislative mandate has created unexpected new requirements for the site that the present implementation does not meet, resulting in criticism from frustrated users. With a different purpose and audience for the site, the original information architecture--no longer effective--will be revamped to meet changing needs. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]