Large websites grow in layers. A university site may have hundreds of contributors across faculties, research centres, student services and marketing. A state government department may run a main site, campaign sites and service portals that grew separately. Each team organises its own corner sensibly, and the whole becomes hard to navigate. Enterprise information architecture brings those corners into a shared framework without stopping anyone from publishing.

What makes enterprise work different

The basics are the same as for any site: group content around what people come to do, label it in their words, give every page a sensible address and connect related pages. What changes at scale is coordination.

Many owners. Structure decisions affect teams who report to different managers. A plan only works if each team knows which part it owns and which parts are shared.

Shared vocabularies. Topics, audiences, locations and content types need to mean the same thing across the whole site, or filters and search results become unreliable. That calls for a central taxonomy with a clear process for adding terms.

Scale effects. Filters, listings and archives can generate enormous numbers of addresses. Google's guidance on faceted navigation warns that these can lead to overcrawling and slower discovery of new pages, and recommends ways to keep filtered addresses under control. We include those recommendations in the technical notes.

Phased change. Nobody can restructure thousands of pages over a weekend. The plan has to work while part of the site is old and part is new.

What the service covers

Framework. The top levels of the structure that every team shares: the main sections, how they are named and how new sections are approved.

Section patterns. Repeatable structures for recurring section types, such as a faculty, a service area or a region, so teams build similar things in similar ways.

Content models. The content types the site uses, with required fields and how each type connects to the taxonomy. This links closely to content structures for UX.

Governance. Who owns each part of the framework, who can create sections and terms, and how disputes are settled. Governance does not need to be heavy. A one-page decision guide that people actually use beats a long policy nobody reads.

Rollout plan. A sequence for moving each area into the new framework, with a redirect map for each stage.

Public sector context

Commonwealth agencies building or changing services work to the Digital Transformation Agency's Digital Service Standard. Version 2.0 applied to new services from 1 July 2024 and to existing public-facing informational and transactional services from 1 July 2025, in each case for services owned by non-corporate Commonwealth entities. Its ten criteria include "Know your user", "Leave no one behind" and "Connect services". It names no specific navigation rules, but a structure built on user research, accessibility and consistent patterns supports those criteria directly. The Australian Government Style Manual's guidance on hierarchical structure is another useful shared reference for writers across teams.

State and local governments have their own policies, and private organisations have none of these obligations. We work with whatever framework applies.

Keeping teams publishing during the change

A framework rolled out across a large site has to coexist with the old structure for months. We plan for that explicitly: which areas move first, how links between moved and unmoved areas behave, how the main menu presents a half-finished structure without confusing visitors, and which rules apply to new content published during the transition. Each team gets a short brief for its own stage, so nobody needs to read the whole framework document to do their part.

How the work runs

Discovery. Interviews with stakeholders from each major area, plus review of analytics, search logs and existing research.
Inventory. A crawl of the sites in scope, with page counts, ownership and content types.
Framework draft. Top-level structure, section patterns and shared vocabularies, reviewed with a cross-team group.
Testing. Tree tests or card sorts with representative users where the framework involves real choices.
Governance. Ownership map and decision rules.
Rollout plan. Stage-by-stage sequence with redirect maps.

What you receive

A framework document describing the shared structure and section patterns.
Taxonomy workbooks for shared vocabularies.
Content model specifications.
A governance guide and ownership map.
A rollout plan with stage-level redirect maps.
Test results where testing was included.

Engagement size

Enterprise work is quoted after a short paid discovery phase, because the size depends on the number of sites, teams and pages involved. The pricing page explains how discovery is priced and what it produces.

Questions about this topic

Do you work with government agencies?

We can. Commonwealth agencies working to the Digital Service Standard will find our plans line up with its user-centred criteria. Procurement rules vary by agency, so we follow whatever process your agency requires.

Can the work be done in stages?

Yes, and on a large site we recommend it. We plan a shared framework first, then restructure one area at a time so publishing never stops.

Who owns the structure after you finish?

Your organisation does. We help you name owners for each part of the framework and write the rules they follow.

Enterprise information architecture