Have you ever completed a big, juicy UX project only to realize you aren’t sure how to “sell” it to relevant stakeholders? I think this happens to all of us UX-ers at one point or another. We get so immersed in the research and design that, once we climb out of that hole, we think, “Who wouldn’t be into this?!” But that’s why storytelling is such a hot topic right now! We can’t just expect stakeholders to understand the long journey we went on that informed our research/design decisions. We need to be able to convey that journey in a way that makes sense to them and their needs!
Building Structural Arguments is Storytelling
Abby Covert recently published an amazing article, Structural Arguments for Information Architecture, where she discusses the importance of creating effective structural arguments when evaluating and comparing different options for information architecture (IA). 🧩📐 If you don’t know Abby yet, I’m so excited to introduce you to her. She is an information architect and the author of How to Make Sense of Any Mess and Stuck? Diagrams Help. She’s also the organizer of The Sensemakers Club.
Abby’s method of building a strong structural argument for a proposed structure is a valuable tool for the end(-ish) of any IA project because it helps you reflect on your choices in a structured and informative way. It also helps you tell the story of your proposed IA with more confidence!
Abby presents seven common components of effective structural arguments: intention, information, content, facets, classification, curation, and trade-offs. For each component, she also provides examples and relevant questions to consider to help you strengthen your argument. Her article really highlights the importance of thoughtful evaluation and documentation in making informed decisions about IA, as well as increasing stakeholder buy-in for your proposed structure.
Applying Abby’s Advice IRL
This article couldn’t have come at a better time for me, as I was in the middle of a meaty IA project of my own at work. As I finalized my proposed IA structure, I knew I wanted to apply Abby’s advice to my own workflow, even if only to strengthen my own understanding of the value of the IA I was proposing. My first step was to build a template on FigJam, since that’s where I do a lot of my research-related brainstorming and braindumping. 🧠 As I was building out the template, inspired & informed completely by Abby’s article, I realized that the Structural Argument template could be a really fruitful group activity to go through with the product manager, UX designer, & UX manager on the IA project.
Visit my Figma Community page to use this template!
During our team’s weekly sync about the IA project, I proposed that we go through the Structural Argument activity together. Not only was it extremely illuminating, but it also improved stakeholder alignment, facilitated meaningful discussions, clarified different perspectives, and ultimately led to a shared vision for the IA structure. WHEW! Here is the impact of going through the Structural Argument activity as a team in more detail:
📄 It got all of us on the same page — Throughout our IA project, we all kept learning and gathering more and more information in different ways. I was, of course, conducting card sorts and tree tests. But everyone else was also gathering relevant information, too. For example, our product manager was meeting with cross-functional teams, reprioritizing based on business needs, and uncovering internal insights about the product all the time. Doing this activity together allowed us all to share what we had learned and really see the whole picture.
✍️ We had the opportunity to document all relevant information — I start every research project with a problem-scoping exercise that I conduct as a group activity with relevant stakeholders. It helps us better understand the problem, which helps inform our research based on our goals for the project. Doing this Structural Argument activity toward the end-ish of our IA project was a great bookend to starting the project with a problem scope; it allowed us to document everything and make sure that our argument for the proposed structure supported the initial intent of the project.
🫣 It uncovered areas where we didn’t have all of the answers… yet — Abby laid out the seven common components of effective structural arguments, with questions to ask ourselves in order to reflect on how our proposed structure fit into that component area. Going through each component, we found some areas harder to answer than others — which is a good thing! It helped us realize that there is still some information we need to uncover and understand better to make sure that our proposed IA is appropriate for the intent of the project.
Publishing the Template on Figma
After chatting with Abby about how awesome this activity was, we wanted to make this template available for anyone to use for their own information architecture projects! So I published it on my FigJam community page. I would love to know if any of you end up using this template in your next project! Drop a comment with your thoughts! 💭
Links:
Structural Arguments for Information Architecture by Abby Covert
Information Architecture (IA) Structural Argument Template on FigJam by Sahar Naderi