GUEST BLOGGER: Merrilyn Astin Tarlton, Co-Publisher - Attorney at Work

Child development experts call it “impulse control.” A key measure of a child’s maturity, the traditional test for it involves marshmallows. A 4-year-old is offered two marshmallows if he can wait 15 minutes for them. If he can’t wait, he can have a marshmallow right away—but just one. At four, some choose two and work hard to get through the wait and others just want one and want it now.

You just bought a parcel of land and are planning to build a brand new home, your dream home. Would you start building this home without an architecture or floor plan? I would hope not. And the same goes for building a website.

Blueprints are to a house, like sitemaps and wireframes are to a website. Information architecture requires a significant amount of hours of research and discovery long before the designer touches the canvas with their interactive tools.