In this blog post, we’re going to discuss Flickr’s UI and IA. What the heck is that you may ask. Trust me I didn’t know what it was either until I read chapter 3 of WordPress SEO Success. Okay, so before we go in-depth let’s discuss these two terms in further detail. UI stands for the User interface. To keep it as simple as possible, the user interface is the design of the website and how the user interacts with it, in this case, Flickr. IA stands for information architecture. Information architecture is the process of strategically identifying how your site can best be constructed with navigation, third-party tools and so on. Now that you know the meaning let’s talk Flickr.
Flickr’s IA is very simplistic and easy to use. Their UI includes common devices such as a search bar, windows, buttons, and other controls. Another tool that Flickr’s IA provides, is the fact that it features pictures on your homepage that you’re most interested in which eliminates the amount of time you might spend searching for pictures to view. I definitely believe that their UI and IA are a great fit for their target audience because it’s simple to use for the more basic camera user but also advanced enough for the professional user. Flickr offers a “Get pro” option for professional users, which offers advanced stats, ad-free browsing, automatic photo uploads, and more.
Are you guys familiar with site mapping? No? Neither was I. So the IA act of designing the sitemap includes identifying web goals, keywords, web traffic, and so on to achieve a completed website. Sitemaps can be simple or more complex, it all depends on what the client is going for. The most important thing to remember when designing a website is that it should be created with SEO in mind. Flickr does a great job at providing an SEO-friendly menu page labels. As a first time visitor on Flickr’s webpage, I had an easy time locating important information like the explore page and my photo album. The goal of your IA should always be to make your webpage easy to navigate and clean. Flickr does just that. Check out this link to see a sitemap that I created for Flickr.
To me, business isn’t about wearing suits or pleasing stockholders. It’s about being true to yourself, your ideas and focusing on the essentials. – Sir Richard Branson, CEO of Virgin Group
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