Information Architecture and UX Design: Definitions and Scope

Information architecture (IA) and User Experience Design (UX) is an exciting area of study that is growing in importance in academics, industry, as well as in everyday life. As we all interact with technology—websites, search engines, mobile apps, or smart home devices, why do we have good experience with some of them but not others? Who creates and designs these things that make our life pleasant (or miserable)? How to structure information in a usable way so that we can all find it when we need it? Clearly, it is valuable to study the “space” between human cognitive abilities, information content, and the context of use. Enter Information Architecture and User Experience Design, an interdisciplinary field that is rooted in psychology, user interface design, system design, information organization, information access, and information use.