The community library asked to redesign their website so that the website is organized in a way that facilitates easy information discovery and task completion. The original website contained a large amount of information and the users had problems finding information they sought.
The following deliverables were provided to make recommendations:
My Role
This project demonstrates my ability to solve information architecture problems that are navigation, labeling, and site structure issues. Through conducting various user research such as a stakeholder interview, tree testing, and first click testing, the solutions were sought out. The final recommendations were explicitly illustrated as sitemap and wireframes.
Upper Sandusky Community Library website offers ample amount of information and its current way of organization hinders the website users to find the information they seek. The outdated technologies on the website also prevent the users from accomplishing their tasks and finding information. To solve these problems, I have conducted various user research. The library also requested the redesign site to be easy to maintain by a small group of staff to keep the maintenance cost minimal.
Before conducting user research, I have examined the current website. Here are my results:
To understand users and context of the Upper Sandusky Library, I interviewed proxies, two librarians and one integrated library coordinator from my local libraries, and asked about users’ common tasks and essential information sought out by users.
Based on the stakeholder interviews and literature search, I developed a primary persona representing the typical site users’ characteristics, habits, and tasks. I then built three secondary personas illustrating the several distinct habits seen among the primary persona. The personas were created to help focus on the users’ needs during the design phase of the project.
I performed content analysis on the current website and determined whether to keep, repurpose, rework, or remove the content. The decisions were made based on the users’ information needs and tasks identified from the stakeholder interviews and literature search.
After performing content analysis, I organized the content into groups that make sense to users. I then determined that a subject/topic classification scheme helps create a website structure that best supports the users. To help users with specific tasks in mind, I decided to add a task-based classification scheme as a supportive scheme.
With the classification determined, I assessed labeling and taxonomy—tree testing. The tree testing was conducted by giving participants of the test scenario-tasks to find a certain item or functionality within a group of categories and sub-categories. The scenario-tasks were generated from the key tasks identified from the previous research.
Two participants went to Contact Us instead of Visit The Library. The difference between the two categories may be unclear.
Four participants identified the correct place—Search Catalog that is connected to a search result page of Books, Movies & Music where users can reserve books. One participant went to Online Database. Online Database label may be unclear to users.
Two participants went to Services and then redirected themselves to My Account. Three other participants went to the Circulation Policy under the Services category. The Services label may be confusing to users.
To further assess the labeling and taxonomy, I conducted first click testing. The study was conducted by asking participants of the test to click an area, link, or button that they believe to accomplish a certain task asked to perform. Prior to testing, I created a few wireframes to use in the test.
Two participants clicked on the Contact Us button in the header section instead of Hours & Direction. This result confirmed the idea of including a local navigation link of the Hours & Direction on the Contact Us page to redirect users. Part of the reason why participants clicked on the Contact Us button might be that they couldn’t see the subcategories of About The Library that include the Hours & Direction as a sub-category.
Two participants clicked on the About The Library button. The wording of the scenario-task might be the cause (i.e., they might have thought I asked them to find a job at a library). Or About The Library label may be confusing to users.
Two participants used a search field to find the database while one participant clicked on the Using The Library button. The Reserve Items link and Book, Movies & Music button were also chosen. The specific scenario-task might be the cause.
To help redirect the users who went to the Contact Us page, place Hours & Direction link in a local navigation (on the left column) on the Contact Us page.
Include contextual links of the jobs and careers websites on the Employment at Library page to the About The Library category to redirect users who went to the category.
Include a contextual link of the ProQuest Ancestry database on the home page under the Services section to offer direct access to the database. If possible, allow users to search for the databases in the search field. Make ProQuest Ancestry as a sub-category of Using The Library. Create a Research Databases category on the global navigation and include a link to the ProQuest Ancestry database on the destination page.
Here is the final sitemap I propose for the redesign site. The sitemap was resulted from the previous research and tests.
The following wireframes exhibit proposed page organization of home page as well as several key workflows. I assessed the wireframes with the first click testing and revised them based on the results.
First stab at wireframes
Annotated wireframes
The global navigation that displays the top level categories and sub-categories show how information can be accessed through the navigation.
