Best Practices of Information Architecture and Website Redesign for Information Professionals
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The Catholic Research Resources Alliance (CRRA) enlisted a team to redesign their website to focus less on administrative functions and more on delivering resources and services to members and scholars. The team conducted stakeholder interviews, user surveys, and usability testing to understand goals, content, and how users interact with the site. They found issues with navigation, organization, and graphic design. The redesign process included developing an information architecture strategy and wireframes based on research findings. The new design aims to better highlight key resources and emphasize major functions through changes to navigation, home page organization, text, and graphics.
Best Practices of Information Architecture and Website Redesign for Information Professionals
- 1. Best Practices of Information Architecture and Website Redesign for Information Professionals Presenters: J. Jasmine Chmiel, Colleen Funkhouser, Raymond Maxwell LSC 610 Instructor: Sue Yeon Syn CRRA Digital Projects Librarian: Pat Lawson Catholic Research Resources Alliance (CRRA) enlisted our team to transform their website from an administrative focus, and shift its attention to meeting member and scholar needs. About CRRA: A nonprofit membership alliance providing global access to Catholic research resources CRRA website’s function: The Catholic Portal, a knowledge portal Access to Catholic Portal and Catholic Newspapers Program Member institutions communicate and participate with the Alliance CRRA’s goals for the website: Focus less on administrative functions Focus more on delivery of services and resources Initial research provides information about three key aspects of a website: Context: goals of the organization and specifically of the website Content: documents, data and structure of the site Users: who uses the site, and for what purposes The research and analysis techniques we used included: Interviews with stakeholders: meetings and knowledge audit to define goals, and determine client’s requirements Site analytics: analysis of Google Analytics User survey: designed and distributed an online user survey Research Usability testing helps designers evaluate a web site by testing it with representative users. The goal is to: Identify usability problems to determine user satisfaction Identify problems before they are coded – the earlier in production that problems are identified, the less expensive the fixes will be We conducted three separate usability tests to determine different aspects of the site’s strengths and weaknesses: Heuristic review: compare site to formal, standard design guidelines Task analysis: how ordinary users approach and utilize site features Usability checklist: multi-item checklist to test all of the site’s features, and ensure that no essential design criteria are overlooked Original Website Design New Design Mockup We concluded: The research phase was integral to the completion of the project Usability test and survey results affected our approach to the high-level architecture phases Linking between the information-gathering and project management stages was critical This linkage demonstrated the enmeshed relationships between project management and knowledge management in the project’s lifecycle Implementing changes to an established website: an information architecture (IA) strategy This provides the bridge between the research, and the written deliverables that will be presented to the client IA strategy should be designed based on the results of research on the context, users and content of the site Tools to develop information architecture strategies include content maps, content models, high level blueprints, and wireframes References: 1) Morville, P. & Rosenfeld, L. (2006). Information Architecture for the World Wide Web. (3rd ed.). Sebastopol, CA: O'Reilly. 2) Catholic Research Resources Alliance :: Home. (n.d.). Retrieved January 13, 2015, from http://www.catholicresearch.net/ Successful web redesign requires: Clear articulation of goals, audience, and user needs Attentive involvement with stakeholders throughout the process Consider improvement to navigation//organization/graphic design Member quotes: "It would be nice if the Portal had more of its own identity aimed more at researchers. The search box can get lost." "Redundancy of information, so that users do not have to know the ontology that the CRRA has employed" "More graphical links and buttons. I keep wanting the red rectangle headings for the Portal and CNP on the home page to be links." We recommended: Global navigation improvements to highlight key resources Homepage reorganization to emphasize major functions Text and graphics changes to improve overall usability Reviewing recommendations and receiving direct feedback from stakeholders throughout the process to inform key features of the final design Drafting a style guide to record redesign process will provide a framework for future planning and growth New Wireframe Project Background Best Practices CRRA Needs/Member Needs Usability Assessments Information Architecture Conclusions/Recommendations