Simple Fix, Big Impact
When Information Architecture Saves 50% of Your Time
The Situation
Working as a contract administrator supporting the Accounts Receivable department, I handled research requests that required locating specific financial documents from archived records. This research supported A/R clerks who needed additional information to process payments accurately.
The Inefficiency
The document research process consumed my entire 20-hour weekly contract. The existing filing system was organized by storage location rather than by the information people actually needed to find documents. This meant extensive searching through multiple sections for each request.
The Recognition
I realized the filing system was optimized for storage logistics rather than retrieval efficiency. The most commonly needed search criteria - dates and transaction details - were buried as secondary organizing principles, making routine research unnecessarily time-consuming.
The Solution
I reorganized the entire indexing system, inverting the structure to prioritize the information people actually used to find documents. This simple reorganization - restructuring the information architecture around user needs rather than storage convenience - made research dramatically more efficient.
The Results
The same research work now took 10 hours per week instead of 20. This freed up half my time for higher-value projects, including building reporting systems that provided daily performance metrics for management. The A/R team received research results faster, improving their workflow efficiency.
The Insight
Information systems often reflect the logic of how they were created rather than how they're actually used. Simple reorganization around user access patterns can yield immediate, dramatic improvements in operational efficiency.