Following last week’s #wptv chat on slack, I took on the task of mapping the current Information Architecture of the WordPress.tv wesbite for it’s upcoming redesign. I’ll start by showing what is currently there (including screenshots for visual records), leave some personal notes as I go through each screenshot, and at the end I’ll leave some actionable items for whomever wants to get involved with this.

Overview

I tried to keep my notes high-level, focusing on repeating patterns on the site, instead of literal structures. This tree represents what are basically three levels of content: main navigation items (some are categories, some pages), archives, and singles (video pages, posts on the blog, or pages under the top level).

“WordCamps”, “Related Events”, and “How To”, are basically the main categories of content on the site. These three hold all the videos on the site. The videos have a series of taxonomies that can be viewed through their archives: “Event”, “Speaker”, “Language”, “TagTag Tag is one of the pre-defined taxonomies in WordPress. Users can add tags to their WordPress posts along with categories. However, while a category may cover a broad range of topics, tags are smaller in scope and focused to specific topics. Think of them as keywords used for topics discussed in a particular post.”, and “Date”.

The “Get Involved” page is a simple page with a series of links for submission guidelines and instructions on how to add captions or subtitles.

The Blog section is a separate site made to look the same. It’s a simple WordPress blog, with standard taxonomies. From the Blog main navigation there’s a “Contact” item (not present in the main site navigation, only in its footer).

I think overall this structure is pretty good for the site. I’d probably remove the “Contacts” from the top navigation entirely (currently only shows when you are in the blog), and maybe reconsider having “Blog” up there, mostly because its posts are referenced in many places (tho that could change), and it isn’t updated often (last post is over a year old).

EDIT: There’s at least a couple of hidden main categories of content: “Announcements” and “Interviews”. Maybe there’s more, but these are the two I stumbled upon while writing this post. Not sure what to make of these, I only found them out on the sidebarSidebar A sidebar in WordPress is referred to a widget-ready area used by WordPress themes to display information that is not a part of the main content. It is not always a vertical column on the side. It can be a horizontal rectangle below or above the content area, footer, header, or any where in the theme. of an Event Archive page… Any thoughts? I don’t see a need for “Announcements” to be a top-level item, but maybe “Interviews” should.

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#design, #information-architecture, #vizrec, #wptv-v3