# Information Architecture ## Design goal A first-time merchant should navigate confidently without a tutorial. Every top-level section answers "what is the merchant trying to accomplish?" — never "what module lives here?" This doc defines the merchant-facing navigation and shows how it maps onto the 20 backend modules from `../architecture/04-domain-modules.md`, without ever exposing that mapping to the merchant. ## Top-level navigation Seven sections — kept deliberately small, per "avoid clutter" and "consistency over feature quantity." Ordered by how often a merchant touches each in a normal week. 1. **Home** 2. **Orders** 3. **Products** 4. **Customers** 5. **Marketing** 6. **Reports** 7. **Settings** No eighth item, no "More" overflow menu. If a future capability doesn't fit one of these seven, that's a signal to reconsider the capability's scope before adding navigation surface — not a reason to add an eighth item. ## Section-by-section breakdown ### 1. Home The merchant's daily landing page. Leads with the **Store Health Score** and a prioritized list of specific recommendations — never a wall of charts. This is where Merchant Health and the highest-priority Automation Engine alerts surface, framed as "here's what needs your attention today," not "here's a dashboard." *Backed by (invisible to merchant):* Merchant Health, Automation Engine (alert feed), Analytics (headline metrics only). ### 2. Orders List of orders, order detail, fulfillment actions, returns/refunds. The transactional heart of the product — must feel instant and reliable (Core tier). *Backed by:* Orders, Shipping (fulfillment/tracking), Payments (payment status shown inline, never editable here), Discount Engine (discount applied shown inline, read-only). ### 3. Products Everything about what's for sale: product list, product detail/edit, variants, categories/collections, bundles. Stock level and reorder point are shown **inline on the product**, not as a separate "Inventory" section — a merchant thinks "this product is running low," not "check the inventory module." Product upload/edit is where the automatic image processing, SEO metadata, alt text, and catalog-quality suggestions (missing info, duplicates) surface contextually. *Backed by:* Catalog, Inventory (fully folded into the Products experience), Media Manager (invoked inline on upload), Automation Engine (catalog-quality and merchandising suggestions surfaced inline). ### 4. Customers Customer list, customer profile (order history, addresses, wishlist), segments/tags. Segments defined here are reused by Marketing for targeting — the merchant defines "who," Marketing defines "what to say to them." *Backed by:* Customers. ### 5. Marketing Campaigns, discount codes/coupons, and the recovery/re-engagement automations (abandoned cart, back-in-stock, repeat-purchase reminders) presented as reviewable, mostly-automatic campaigns rather than raw settings. Automation-generated suggestions (a seasonal promo idea, a bundle suggestion) surface here as draftable campaigns, not silent background actions. *Backed by:* Marketing, Discount Engine, the campaign/recovery slice of Automation Engine, Notification Service (delivery, invisible — the merchant sees "sent" / "delivered" status, not the dispatch mechanism). ### 6. Reports Merchant-readable reports built from raw metrics — sales, traffic, product performance, customer trends. Distinct from Home: Home is "what should I do right now," Reports is "how is the business doing over time." Scheduled/exported reports live here too. *Backed by:* Analytics, Reporting. ### 7. Settings Store identity, payment methods, shipping rates/zones, tax configuration, staff accounts/roles, notification preferences, and storefront content (pages/banners). This is the one section where some technical configuration is unavoidable — but every setting here should still be framed in business language and carry a sensible default, per `../architecture/02-principles-and-tradeoffs.md`. *Backed by:* Settings, User Management, Tax, Shipping (rate/zone configuration), Payments (gateway connection), Content Manager, Search Engine (only if any merchant-facing search tuning is ever needed — expected to be near-zero given intelligent defaults). ## What's deliberately invisible - **Automation Engine** never appears as a named section. Its output shows up as recommendations inline in Home, Products, and Marketing — the merchant experiences "the store told me five products are missing photos," never "the Automation Engine flagged five products." - **Notification Service** never appears as a named section. Delivery status shows up inline wherever the triggering action lives (an order confirmation's delivery status on the Order detail page, a campaign's delivery stats in Marketing). - **Media Manager** never appears as a named section. It's the machinery behind image upload in Products — the merchant uploads a photo and gets a fast, optimized result; they never configure "media." - **Search Engine** never appears as a named section under normal operation. It powers the storefront's product search and the admin's global search bar, both of which "just work" with no merchant configuration in the common case. - **Commerce Core** has no merchant-facing surface at all — it's pure backend orchestration. ## Sitemap (second-level pages) ``` Home └── (single page: health score + prioritized recommendations) Orders ├── Order list (filterable: status, date, fulfillment) ├── Order detail (line items, payment status, fulfillment, customer link) └── Returns & refunds Products ├── Product list (filterable: status, stock level, category) ├── Product detail/edit (info, images, variants, pricing, stock, SEO — auto-filled) ├── Categories & collections └── Bundles Customers ├── Customer list (filterable: segment, order count, last order) ├── Customer detail (profile, order history, addresses, wishlist) └── Segments Marketing ├── Campaigns (active, scheduled, automated recovery flows) ├── Discounts & coupons └── Suggested campaigns (Automation Engine output, draftable) Reports ├── Sales overview ├── Product performance ├── Customer insights └── Scheduled/exported reports Settings ├── Store details (identity, currency, locale) ├── Payments ├── Shipping ├── Tax ├── Staff & permissions ├── Notifications └── Online store content (pages, banners) ``` ## Global elements (present across all sections) - **Search bar** — global admin search across orders, products, and customers (backed by Search Engine, invisible). - **Health indicator** — a small, persistent Store Health Score glimpse in the nav, linking back to Home, so the score is always one click away without needing its own top-level slot. - **Notifications bell** — merchant-facing alerts (not to be confused with the backend Notification Service) for things needing attention (new order, low stock crossing threshold, campaign finished).