Information Architecture
Designing the information architecture for a craft market organisation's official website.
THE PROBLEM
How to make a better information environment for a website of a market organisation?
In Taiwan, craft markets are hugely popular. People attend such events during weekends to enjoy the creative atmosphere. A craft market organiser arranges multiple market events in different venues through out the year. The market organiser need to announce event information to market goers and stall holders.
Most of the market organizers in Taiwan do not have their own website. Instead, market organisers are using Facebook Fanpage to announce information. The linear presentation of information on Facebook fan page makes it difficult to retrieve information.
My goal of this project is to improve the connection between the market organiser and its target user: market goers and stall holders.
HIGH LEVEL TIMELINE
This project is a two-month individual coursework for Information Architecture module from my MSc programme in 2016.
MAKE OF THE TEAM
This is an individual project. I was the user researcher and UX architect in the project.
KEY GOAL
To design an information architecture of an information rich environment.
MY ROLE
As an information architecture designer in this individual project, I planned and conducted this project on my own.
During the research stage, I interviewed experts in the field to understand how they use information from the market organiser to support their activities, for example, checking artist listing and finding the event venue.
In the design stage, I made decisions of which organisation schemes and patterns to use and how to label the information. The decision made in the design process was based on insights of the user interviews and evidences from tree testing. I developed the site map to present the site structure and identified the key user journey of the website and created the wireframes. I evaluated my design with user testing and improved it with feedbacks from the user testing.
UNDERSTANDING THE USER
From the interviews, I learned what are the key information on a market website and the audiences' pain point which I aimed to solve.
From the expert interviews, I gained valuable opinions to understand the important element in this domain. The insights from the interviews helped me make decisions of what to include as the key functions on a craft market website.
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I interviewed an artist and a market goer, who are the two main user groups of a craft market website.
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Different user groups are looking for different type of information on the website. For example, while market goers are looking for transport for the market venues, stall holders are looking for application form of an upcoming market.
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Different user groups have different goals on the website. Market goers want to plan their journey to the market, stall holders want their brand be seen by web viewers. But fan pages of the market organisers do not serve their goals.
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Pain points shared by both user groups: information on Facebook fan page are hard to search and retrieve due to the linear design and the information for different user group are mixed.
User Interviews
There are two main users of the market organisation website: stall holders (artists), and the market goers (art fans).
Domain Model
The domain model presents the relationship of the key elements and Capture the dynamic between these elements and users.
BREAKING DOWM THE PROCESS
There are three stages in this project: Research, Design, and Evaluate. The site map, user journey and wireframes were developed.
I did user research with participants from the main user group to gain insights of the field. Based on the results of the research, I discovered the users' pain points and their needs. I organised information for different user groups to make the website be easier to navigate and to find information. To test the usability of the design, I evaluated the design with user testing and interviews. I improved the design based on the feedback from the users.
Sitemap
In this sitemap, the structure of the website was presented. For example, the Navigation system, labelling and links between pages.
User Journey
This user journey presents how users navigate through the website to find an artist that is listed on the website. The interaction flow and possible routes that lead users to their goals are shown.
KEY FEATURE OF THE DESIGN
Topic-based Organisation Schemes
I decided to use topic-based organisation schemes for this website because the user's main activity on this website is to browse information grouped in different topics.
Simple Hierarchy and Simple Database
The organisation patterns is a combination of simple hierarchy and simple database. This pattern can present the basic content of the website in hierarchical sections, and use the power of a database to assemble detailed information within a section.
Noun Based Labelling System
The consistency of labelling is important. With the topic-based organisation scheme, I decided to use noun on the global navigation bar. The ‘Join Our Maker Community’ button is an exception because the audience of that link is not the main user group but the second user group, the makers.
Faceted Navigation
I decided to use faceted navigation because it can help users to narrow down the results by several dimensions while browsing them narrowing process step-by-step. Users can filter the events by date, location, theme, products, and makers.
Hierarchical Structure and Breadcrumbs
The structure of the website was hierarchical and therefor, I added a breadcrumbs on the top left of the page. The breadcrumbs help users to navigate through the hierarchy structure easily.
Recommendation
According to the interviews, the serendipitous experience is one of the reason why people enjoy going to markets. To recreate this experience on a digital platform, the links of brands with similar style are shown on the page to increase the chance of discovering new designers.
LESSONS LEARNED
In this project, I learned how to develop an information architecture that is clear and easy to understand for users.
As an illustrator, I love going to art/craft markets to get inspirations and talk to the artists. By interviewing artists and market goers, I have more in-depth insights into a topic I am passionate about.
Moreover, by designing the information architecture of an art market website, I learned the importance of the design of information architecture and how it effect on user experience. I know how to choose the most suitable structure for different types of information and when to use IA tools to help me make design decisions.
I have a better understanding of IA and I enjoyed the project very much.