Information architecture audits
Find where the structure, labels or links get in the way.
Information architecture studio
A clearer structure
for a website people can find their way around.
We help Australian organisations sort out content-heavy websites through information architecture, navigation design, taxonomy and internal linking, so visitors can find what they came for.
Sample sitemap
- Clearer navigationMenus named in your visitors' words
- Purposeful linksPages connected where it helps the reader
- Task-led structureSections built around what people come to do
- Tidier taxonomyCategories and tags with clear rules
- Room to growA plan that can take new sections later
Our services
Website architecture for complex content
From a short audit to a full restructure, we plan how your pages are grouped, named and linked, and hand over the rules your team needs to keep it that way.
Navigation design
Menus and wayfinding that guide people to the right section.
Sitemap planning
A page list and hierarchy for simple or complex websites.
Taxonomy design
Categories, tags and filters with clear, written rules.
Internal linking strategy
Connect content with purpose so good pages get found.
Content restructuring
Reorganise and tidy existing content before a rebuild.
Enterprise information architecture
Large-scale structure for organisations with several publishing teams.
Content structures for UX
Line up content models, templates and the sitemap.
Same content, clearer order
From tangled to clear
Restructuring does not mean rewriting everything. It means deciding where each page belongs, what it is called and which pages should point to it.
Before
Pages added over years, linked wherever there was room.
After
The same pages, grouped by what visitors came to do.
- Home
- Products
- Overview
- Pricing
- Solutions
- By industry
- Use cases
- Resources
- Guides
- Blog
- Company
- About
- Contact
- Products
Discover
Learn your goals, your audiences and the content you have.
Map
Inventory the pages and trace how people move through them.
Structure
Draft the sitemap, labels, taxonomy and linking rules.
Refine
Test the draft with real tasks and adjust what fails.
Launch
Hand over redirect maps, rules and notes for your team.
Free planning tools
Practical tools for planning your structure
Five planners that run in your browser. They draft a sitemap, check a taxonomy, draw a hierarchy and turn your answers into a brief. Nothing you type leaves your device.
Sitemap builder
Draft a sitemap with suggested addresses in minutes.
Taxonomy planner
Plan your content categories and tags.
Hierarchy visualiser
Map your site structure as a readable tree.
IA worksheet
Collect the facts behind your next website project.
Internal linking checklist
Build stronger content connections, one check at a time.
Illustrative restructures
What a restructure can change
Three invented websites, each with a structural problem and the kind of change a plan would propose. They show the method, not results, and contain no client data.
A software company
Navigation redesign
- Nine menu items merged into five
- Product pages grouped by the job they do
- Pricing reachable from every product page
A training provider
Information architecture
- Courses sorted by career stage, not by department
- One page per course instead of three
- Guides tagged by course for cross-links
A state association
Content restructuring
- Member and public content split cleanly
- Old news archived under a single section
- Redirect map drafted for every moved page
Before you redesign
Why the structure deserves its own plan
A website grows one decision at a time. A new service gets a page, a campaign gets a section, a team asks for its own corner of the menu. Each choice makes sense on the day. Years later the site can hold several pages on the same topic, a menu named after departments, and articles that nothing links to. Visitors may feel this as a search that keeps failing: they click, go back, click again, and perhaps phone or email instead.
Information architecture is the work of stepping back from single pages and deciding how the whole collection fits together. It answers four practical questions. What groups should the content fall into? What should each group, and each page, be called? Which address should each page live at? And which pages should link to which?
Structure before design
Visual design and new technology cannot fix a structure that does not match how people think about your content. A redesign that keeps the old groupings keeps the old problems, only with new colours. That is why we suggest settling the structure first, then handing a clear sitemap and labelling plan to whoever designs and builds the site, whether that is your own team or another agency.
Findability for people and for search engines
A clear structure helps two kinds of visitor. People get menus they can read and pages that sit where they expect. Search engines get crawlable links and readable addresses. Google's own guidance asks that each page you care about be linked from "at least one other page on your site", and says a logical structure helps search engines understand how pages relate. What a structure cannot do is guarantee rankings or traffic. It removes obstacles; the content still has to answer the question.
Accessibility is part of the plan
Consistent navigation and more than one way to reach a page are WCAG 2.2 success criteria at level AA, and Consistent Help is a level A criterion added in 2023. These are structural decisions as much as design ones, so they belong in the plan from the start rather than in a fix-up list after launch. Our guide to accessible navigation patterns explains how they apply.
What a plan looks like on paper
A finished plan is not a slide deck of ideas. It is a set of working documents: a spreadsheet listing every page with its address, owner and content type; a diagram of the hierarchy; a list of menu labels with the reasoning behind each; rules for categories and tags; and, if pages are moving, a redirect map. Your designers, developers and writers can each pick up the part they need and start work.
Where to begin
If you are early in a project, try the sitemap builder or the information architecture worksheet. If your site already exists and something feels wrong, an information architecture audit is a sensible first step. If you would rather read first, the guides cover the methods we use, with sources.
What is information architecture?
It is the plan for how a website's content is grouped, named, addressed and linked. In practice that means the sitemap, menu labels, categories and tags, page URLs and the links between pages.
How do you start an information architecture audit?
We start with an inventory of the pages you have, the tasks your visitors come to complete and the paths they take today. From that we mark where the structure, labels or links get in the way, and write it up with a priority order.
Do you work with existing websites?
Yes. The services and guides here are written for organisations that already have a website and want to reorganise it, before a redesign, a platform change or a merger of two sites.
How long does a project take?
It depends on the number of pages, the research involved and how many people approve the plan. Each written quote states its own timeline, and the process page describes what happens at each stage.
Can you help with large, complex websites?
Yes. Large sites need the same basics as small ones, plus clear ownership rules, a shared taxonomy and a plan for moving content in stages. Our enterprise service covers that work.
Do you provide ongoing support?
We can review new sections or a changed taxonomy after launch, quoted as a separate piece of work. If your team would rather look after the structure itself, every plan includes the rules needed to do that.
Ready for a clearer website
Let's plan a clearer structure
Bring your current sitemap, or none at all. We start from what your visitors need to find.