Ixxus Architects are all experts in their field with many years of experience of designing successful software solutions around content and knowledge management systems.With this experience, Ixxus is able to consider all aspects of the system that will deliver what you need including technical architecture, information architecture, and application architecture.

Technical Architecture

Whether you require a document management system for your department or a web content management system that will integrate with all of your existing IT systems to deliver engaging websites around the world, Ixxus can define the technical infrastructure needed to support your requirements. Liaising closely with your IT department where appropriate, the Ixxus approach to defining the architecture is very-much guided by the systems and skill sets that you already own so as to ensure that the final, deployed solution is easy for your organisation to support and maintain.

Application Architecture

Even when you have put in place a top-notch technical infrastructure, a poorly designed application will drain the available resources to the point where the system becomes unusable. The application architects at Ixxus draw on a wealth of experience and knowledge to ensure that your system makes the very best use of the technology at its disposal, incorporating proven SOA and EAI patterns and best practice to ensure reliability, scalability, and maintainability.

Information Architecture

Ixxus recognises that there is no such thing as “one size fits all” information architecture. Having worked with a large number of organisations from a wide cross-section of industries, Ixxus is able to bring this knowledge to bear when helping you define what’s important for your organisation. Rather than dogmatically following theoretical, “off the peg” information models, Ixxus will work with you and your team to identify the information that will really help you achieve your goals. Its experience will guide you to avoid common pitfalls and offer you suggestions that have been proven to work at other organisations similar to yours. Ultimately, it’s your information. Ixxus helps you to realise its potential.

Information architecture is very often the over looked, undervalued and misunderstood element of information management projects. Shiny and spectacular, feature rich software applications get all the attention. However, in our experience, getting your information architecture right is one of the single most important elements to a project, and can make the difference between a mildly annoying, slightly confusing user experience and a site or system that is structured in such a way that the information is where the target users 'expect' the information to be.

Getting it right

To ensure that you get it right, you need to clearly understand your different target audiences and their motivations will need to be identified, as well as an understanding of their terminologies, graphic vocabularies and how they "view the world". The site, system and content can then be structured in a way that delivers the expected result. It should be remembered that the 'information architecture' of the site or system (deciding where content exists) should not be taken forward without consideration of the online brand development and 'voice' of the user interface. Content, layout, site structure and 'voice' should all feel harmonious and consistent. Ixxus has a leading information architecture practice and can help you get it right for your project.

The Ixxus Approach

Herewith an overview as to our thinking and approach:

• When a user is searching for a piece of information, you need an understanding of what problem they are trying to solve, the user’s context and use of terminology, how information is classified and processed.
• If you understand these and the content is properly analysed, classified and tagged, you dramatically improve your system’s sensitivity and specificity.
• A key foundation enabler is to have your Information Architecture in place – early.

Companies and organisations face increasing pressure to manage the huge volumes of information now created, and are waking up to the fact that technology and software alone cannot solve their problems.

An Information Architecture is vital to enable your information to be created, managed and used as efficiently as possible.

Historically search engines alone have been used to provide information access and retrieval services - this had limitations:

• It’s estimated only 33% of relevant information was captured via key word searching.
• Search engines assumed that you knew what you were looking for and could be specific in the use of your keywords.

Typically search engine users never use more than a single term in a search. Hence, search terms will return a much greater number of hits. Often no attention is paid to the fact that a single word search might require:

• synonyms,
• alternative spellings or
• the same concept expressed in a different language.

A Yahoo market research exercise showed 75% of participants preferred browsing a taxonomic structure to searching as it allowed them to view all the documents related to a particular topic.