Evaluating the Architecture of Ketabak Website from an Information Architecture Perspective

This paper aimed to do a comparative evaluation of Ketabak website architecture based on the main components of information architecture.

Content analysis and evaluation were used. The content analysis approach was adopted to identify the context, content and user, and a checklist-based evaluation tool was used to analyze the status of Ketabak website architecture.

The mission of the site is to 1) promote reading among children and adolescents and 2) help to select the right reading materials. The main users of the website are fathers, mothers, educators, teachers, librarians, and anyone interested in promoting reading. The content of the website is published to fulfill its mission and goals. According to the analysis of checklists, the scores obtained for each of the organization, labeling, navigation and search systems were 25, 32, 51, and 20, respectively. These scores are rated very good, good, very good, and poor. The organization structure was the main weaknesses of the website in the organization system. In the labeling system, the naming of labels and fonts are often ambiguous and confuse the user at first exposure to the website. Other major flaws were in navigation labeling. Half of the navigation labels are in the footer instead of in the navigation bar. The major disadvantage of Ketabak website in navigation system is the lack of a local navigation. Another major weakness of the website is the lack of an alphabetic index in the navigation bar. This website has a lot of information that can be indexed. Other disadvantages of the navigation system are the lack of mega-menu image, the poor design on smartphones, the lack of effective guides in different parts of the site and the lack of automatic customization and personalization capabilities. In addition, the website did not receive a good rating in the search system. The website uses a machine aided indexing system and the user cannot directly enter what is in their mind as a query. It can only enter keywords indexed in the search engine. Lack of capabilities such as ranking algorithms, advanced search capabilities, and storage of search results are other weaknesses of the search system.

Based on the results, the alphabetical organization scheme of the website needs to be expanded. The geographical organization scheme needs to change dramatically. The website's main navigation system must be equipped with a local navigation system. A number of disadvantages of different navigation systems need to be addressed. The website search system is weak. One way to strengthen the search system is to use the natural language processing in indexing. Adding an autosuggest to the website's search system is also one of the ways to improve the search system performance.