Natalie Ross

Why a pen name

The guides on this site are published under a pen name so that the writing can be judged on its sources and reasoning rather than on a personal profile. We think readers deserve to know that, so we say it plainly here.

What Natalie writes about

• How to plan and test a website structure: sitemaps, hierarchies, card sorting and tree testing.
• Navigation and wayfinding, including the accessibility requirements that depend on structure.
• Taxonomies, categories and tags, and how they drive listings and filters.
• Page addresses, internal links and restructuring without breaking things.
• What the work costs in Australia and how to compare quotes.

How the guides are researched

Each guide starts from official sources wherever they exist: Google Search Central for crawling, links, addresses and site moves; the W3C for accessibility; and Australian government sources such as the Style Manual, the Digital Transformation Agency and the Office of the Australian Information Commissioner. Secondary and commercial sources are labelled as such in each source list. Worked examples are invented and labelled.

Natalie does not claim professional certifications, and the guides do not describe client projects. Where a recommendation is a matter of judgement rather than a published rule, the guide says so.

Corrections

If you find an error, an outdated source or a broken link in one of Natalie's guides, please tell us through the contact page. The editorial policy explains how corrections are handled.

Guides by Natalie Ross

• What is information architecture? sets out the parts of a structure, from hierarchy and labels to search, and where the work sits in a project.
• Card sorting and tree testing compares two research methods and shows how to run each on a small budget, including privacy points for recruiting.
• Taxonomy, categories and tags separates vocabularies, explains facets and gives a step list for cleaning up an existing tag list.
• Accessible navigation patterns covers the WCAG 2.2 criteria that depend on structure and why disclosure menus suit ordinary websites.
• Planning a URL structure weighs nested folders against flat addresses and drafts a one-page address policy.
• Planning a sitemap walks through ten steps from visitor tasks to an XML sitemap at launch.
• Internal linking for findability explains hubs, related links, link text and how to find orphan pages.
• Restructuring without losing search traffic builds a redirect map and launch checklist, with honest expectations about visibility.
• Breadcrumbs and wayfinding looks at the signals that tell visitors where they are, including breadcrumb markup.
• What information architecture costs in Australia reports published 2026 rates, labelled as commercial, and how to compare quotes.

Writing habits

Every guide opens with a direct answer before the detail. Quotation marks are kept for exact source wording. Worked examples use invented organisations and say so. Each guide carries the date it was last revised and the date its sources were checked, so readers can judge how current it is.