Information Architecture & User Experience

A robust digital strategy absolutely requires a meticulously planned underlying information architecture. This critical foundation is what enables your collections to become discoverable through general search engines and empowers your users to intuitively navigate your digital collections portal, efficiently locate relevant information, and embark on deeper journeys of discovery. It must be purposefully designed with the end-user in mind.

We acknowledge the traditional card catalog's role in accessing historical information, but the digital age demands a transformation. We now possess the unparalleled opportunity to extend this experience to anyone with an internet connection through thoughtful digital preservation. However, this is far from a simple "copy/paste" of existing finding aids. A truly effective digital strategy must be user-centric, diverging from the habits and needs of internal staff to meet the modern expectations of your diverse audience.

Consider how a simple search for "Betsy Ross" in a traditionally cataloged digital collection might yield irrelevant results first, burying pertinent content several pages deep because the metadata was conceived with a 20th-century approach. The average person rarely navigates beyond the first page of search results. This highlights the critical need for a 21st-century approach to metadata and information architecture—one that is more complex, impactful, and genuinely useful to the end-user.