Week 5 - Information Architecture

Onboarding

Onboarding is the process that the user goes through when using a product or service, and its’ success relies on the ease at which the user can navigate through it. Good onboarding makes it easy for the user to start their journey through a clear and easy set-up process and ultimately improves long-term engagement. It should be between 1-5 screens and should generate an excitement about using the app by highlighting functions or features. Whilst information should be brief, it can also explain a little about how the app will work.

Good onboarding retains users and therefore increases profit for stakeholders.

There are three main stories that our onboarding can tell:

Benefit-Oriented - How does the user benefit from using this app?

Function-Oriented – What can the user do with this app (and how)?

Doing-Oriented – Onboard users by prompting them how to use the app as they go.

Task 2: Onboarding for Dog Walking app

A doing-oriented approach seems to make sense at first, as the main problem I wish to address is offering personalised search results. However, my research did highlight that people have different needs at different times. One day, the user might have less time than another day. I think it’s more important to use a filtering system during the search stage.

Therefore, I would like to use a function-oriented approach, with a few screens that showcase what the capabilities of the app are and how easy it is to use.

I think it would be very useful to allow users to use the product before having to sign up. This allows users to get a feel for the app, understand the benefits from using it as well as the benefits of creating an account, which would be the ability to save favourite walks, write reviews and earn rewards.

Thinking back to my previous weeks challenge activities I can already see that these need to be reworked with this information in mind. It is encouraged to revisit the onboarding flow frequently as improving this always goes on to improve retention.

Fig 1. Onboarding Flow for Dog Walking App

Information Architecture

Information Architecture (IA) is an important part of the UX process. It is about the simplification of organisation and information, search and navigation methods that allow the user to use the app and find and interact with the elements within.

“Its goal is to help people understand and manage information and make right decisions accordingly” (Ding, 2009).

Successful IA improves usability of a site and makes it easier for scaling up in the future as more content and functionality is added.

The key components of IA are:

• Ontology – the meaning of the words used on the app – what terms are used on the site; does it create a shared meaning? We need to understand that words have a certain meaning to us, but that may be different from our users. Conducting user research helps us to understand this.

• Taxonomy – how are groups classified and labelled, such as the Dewey decimal system in a library.

• Choreography – the rules of how meaning and structure come together through Taxonomy and Ontology. It anticipates how a user will navigate through the app or service. This could be alphabetical, geographical, or chronological if we are providing exact navigation, or ambiguous (topics, task or audience) if that is better suited to your user’s needs.

IA for dog walking app

One of the key sections of this app is the search results page. It gathers lots of information about different walks. At first glance, the results should be listed geographically, with the nearest destination first.

However, the user has already determined some topics that are important to them including what type of walk they would like to go on, the duration/length, and how far they wish to travel that day, and so I think it would make much more sense to categorise based on peer ratings.

Card Sorting

This is a useful task that allows us to understand how users interpret and organise information.  Cards are labelled and then we ask our participants to organise them into logical categories. The designer would observe their actions and inquire about their decision-making, whilst noting any similarities and differences between participants. This can be done as an open (generative) or closed (evaluative) card sort, whether we want to allow users to freely arrange cards into topics of their own choice, or to match up pre-labelled cards with categories.

Navigation

This refers to the way we move around a site, app or physical space. When shopping in IKEA, we move around the store in a logical way, informed by tangible indicators such as arrows on doors, or signs at the ends of aisles. It works the same with online sites as we apply navigational tools to our site that are non-intrusive but allow easy movement throughout. This could be as simple as back arrows in the top left corner, or breadcrumb trails at the top or bottom of the page to show where we are within the context of the site. Orientation allows us to understand where we are, whilst wayfinding enables us to get to where we want to go.

There are many different navigation tools that can be integrated into a site:

• Global – this is always in the same place, in the same style, regardless of what page you are in on the site. It adds consistency to the site and is often known as the primary navigation.

• Local – These allow access to lower levels within the structure and are usually after a global navigation item has been selected, perhaps in the form of a drop-down menu.

• Inline – this can be located inside blocks of text, often found as links to other resources or pages within the app. These can sometimes be missed if users scan a page quickly.

• Contextual – This adapts to the user’s current location within the site. This is often seen as breadcrumbs that relate to the content on the current page. It can also consider users browsing history, so when you add an item to your basket on an ecommerce site, it might suggest other items you may like based on your previous choices.

• Faceted – This allows users to navigate by attributes, such as popularity, brand, or colour etc. Within an app this often looks like a filtering system, as it allows the user to narrow down results.

• Supplemental – this is often used to find obscure information and it is usually found in the footer of a web page (such as careers page, or privacy policy), but it could even be the search bar of a large online store.

Good navigation = good user experience

Good navigation drives a strong user experience. Comprehensive but concise navigation is best. It must cover enough to make it easy for the user to understand and make their way around the site, without ever becoming overwhelming or obstructive. It must be straightforward to use, and be almost instinctual, in that we don’t even realise it’s there or that we’re using it, or that we don’t even notice it until we need to use it. The process of moving around a site should feel natural to us. It is very important that the user can easily assess what a link leads to, for example the link to the shopping cart should be labelled as such.

A site map is useful as it allows us to convey the information about the structure of the product or service at a single glance, based on the insights gathered through our initial research or card sorting.

Task 3: Navigation for dog walking app

There needs to be a global navigation system in place within this app. This allows users to always go back a page, access their profile page as well as the home page. Within the home page there will be secondary (local) navigation, such as search for a new walk and a link to create a profile or sign up (if the user has not already). If the user has already signed up there will be a link to past walks/favourites (with downloaded step by step walks), reviews submitted by the user, pictures the user has uploaded whilst on walks.

I do not think it is necessary to catalogue the walks under categories for the user to browse and select, I think this app will be far more engaging if results are generated based upon a few selections made by the user at the start of each search – as my research found that most dog walkers have different needs on different days.

There will be some inline navigation in the form of buttons that export the routes into Apple Maps or Google Maps, but these will be clearly highlighted through colour. It would be nice to have contextual navigation included. For example, when looking at their ‘favourite walks’ section, the app might suggest other walks that they might also like. Faceted navigation will be an essential part of the search function, allowing users to narrow down search results by selecting different attributes or parameters, such as nearby car parks, circular walking routes, flat terrain etc. There also will need to be an area for supplemental navigation, where users can access settings to update their profile, see terms and conditions, privacy policies etc.

Task 4: Card Sorting

As my app is quite simple and the nature of it is that results are generated once the user has inputted their own filters in. Therefore, I haven’t carried out a card sorting exercise for this. I did however create a bit of a site map with different hierarchies. This is quite basic for now, but I intend to keep this updated as and when I see that more information is added.

Fig 2. Site Map for Dog Walking app

Reworked wireframe

Following on from this week’s activities, I have reworked my wireframe to include more pages, as well as the onboarding section. I think in the long run, it would make the prototyping stage smoother if I wireframe as much of this artefact as possible. It also allows me to highlight areas that need more consideration as well as ensuring that the app will alleviate the pain points raised in my research.

Fig 3. Updated wireframes for Dog Walking app.

References

Ding, W. and Lin, X., 2009. Information architecture: The design and integration of information spaces. Synthesis Lectures on Information Concepts, Retrieval, and Services, 1(1), pp.1-169.