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Latest release: Component Library: v51.3.0 released on Jul 21, 2025 | Guidance: Sprint 7 released on Jul 21, 2025 | Figma: Changelog

Information architecture (IA)

Information architecture focuses on the organization, labeling, and navigation of information to help people find what they need, understand where they are and where they can go in an experience, and successfully complete their intended tasks.

IA principles

VA.gov and the VA: Health and Benefits mobile app follow established IA principles to create intuitive user experiences. These principles guide content organization and navigation design across all VA digital products.

1. User-centered design

  • Conduct research to understand how people categorize and search for information.

2. Sense of place

  • Always provide a sense of place by using design components and content to show visitors where they are within the experience and where they can go next.

3. Consistency

  • Use a consistent organizational structure and labels across different touchpoints, both digital and physical.

4. Prioritization

  • Limit and prioritize information to make sure it’s easy to find at time of need, reduce cognitive load, and allow visitors to explore more detailed information at their own pace.

5. Findability

  • Present information in a way that meets the mental models and needs of visitors.
  • Offer multiple ways for visitors to find and access information to meet various mental models and help them easily find the information they need.

6. Focused navigation

  • Use clear navigation menus and labeling to make sure visitors understand the types of information the navigation leads to.
  • Provide clear calls to action (CTAs) and focused pathways to and through information to reduce cognitive load, friction, and burden.

7. Scalability

  • Design a flexible IA and organizational system that allows content and information to grow and evolve over time

When to think about IA

IA shares many of the same principles as good design and content strategy. Think about IA throughout the planning and design process, including when you start on any of these efforts:

  • Launching a new feature or content on VA.gov or within the VA Health and Benefits app
  • Adding a new category or subsection to the VA Health and Benefits app
  • Adding a new subdomain or subdirectory to VA.gov
  • Rewriting or redesigning a feature or content and needing to split or merge pages or screens
  • Improving the findability of an existing feature, content, or screen
  • Removing a feature, content page or screen
  • Changing the UX of global navigational elements or on-page buttons or actions

IA resources

VA.gov IA questions

For questions about information architecture and content organization, contact the centralized content and IA team in Slack in the #content-ia-centralized-team channel.

IA standards and guidance

Site maps

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Last updated: Jul 29, 2025