I put each page title from the old site on a card and invited the card-sorters to organise them into categories. I allowed them to decide the categories (so it was an open card-sort).

We are using the OpenCms content management system.  This allows good workflow; permissions are fine-grained, and allow some users to contribute content and others to review and publish it.

The initial re-draft of the BUCS site was done by two students; one was studying for an MSc in Science, Culture and Communication, the other for an MSc in Human-Computer Interaction. Then we handed it over to a team of five editors, who had publishing permissions, and the rest of the department were able to contribute content but not publish.  Subsequently the department recruited an overall content editor who manages the site, and she has also done a lot of work on the information architecture in consultation with users and department members.

I used the strict hierarchy model from this tutorial on information architecture models as being the most compatible with the design of the template which someone else had already come up with.

From subsequent user testing and feedback, it became apparent that people ignored the horizontal menu and just looked at the left-hand menu.  This is why we have opted for just having a left-hand menu in our new design. But it is still a strict hierarchy IA model.

New study website
New research website