Refreshing the UXPA Website's IA
Identified issues and proposed ways to improve the information architecture for UXPA.org
Overview
In six weeks' time, our team:
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Indexed, researched, and redesigned the information architecture of the UXPA website.
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Developed and proposed an information strategy for the navigation, organization, and labelling of the UXPA website.
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While we did not work directly with UXPA for this project, we did consult with and present our redesign strategy to a UXPA board member.
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Constraints:
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No budget and limited to free versions of software.
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Software limited the scope of the research; number of cards, tasks, and participants.
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Research results do not account for all website content and sample sizes are less than recommended.
Content Indexing & Card Sorting
In phase one, we used an SEO tool to index the UXPA website and identify important content, gaps, or issues with current content/pages. After analyzing the results, we created a card sorting activity using what we considered to be the most important site content.
​​We identified two major audiences: UX students and UX practitioners. We conducted separate card sorts for each audience group.
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Dendrogram showing where unique categories start to merge based on placement by participants, with group labels top to bottom being: Job Resources, Learn UX, Events, and About.
Findings:
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Participants generally grouped content into five categories, with the most agreed-upon labels being: About, Events, Jobs, Membership, Learn UX.
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Participants were split evenly between two categories for where to sort some content.
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UX practitioners highly agreed on labeling and organization of content.
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UX students mostly disagreed on labeling and organization of content, and frequently reported uncertainty in their choices during testing.
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The most commonly reported reason for using the UXPA website was to access information on events or conferences.
Tree Testing
In phase two we conducted two rounds of tree testing; firstly we sent out a test using the current structure of the UXPA website. Based on results from the first tree test and our card sorting, we modified how we organized and labeled the content for the second tree test.
Tree Test 1 Results:​
Results indicated potential findability issues with75% of participants selecting the incorrect path and answer. We believed this to be due to labeling, with UX students likely being unaware of what a "Chapter" or "SIG" was.
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For the second tree test, we:
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Modified the structure and labels to be in line with the categories we identified during our card sorting activity.
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Moved or cross-listing certain pages in accordance with how they were frequently sorted.
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Relabeled "Chapters and SIGs" under "UX Groups" to address the issue discovered during the first tree test.
Tree Test 2 Results:​
All participants reached the correct answer, with 50% using the predicted path and 50% using an alternate path. Results indicated that both our labelling changes and cross-listing of content under multiple locations improved findability.
Site Map
Using the results of our research, we created a visual sitemap of the UXPA website to provide a better understanding of how the site’s content could be structured and connected to best fit the users’ needs.
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Major changes:
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Better associative navigation was added allowing horizontal movement between sections.
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Cross-listing of pages into multiple categories (see pages with multi-coloured strips) to increase findability.
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Labels were modified to improve findability for UX students who are largely unfamiliar with certain UXPA terminology.
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Merged Consulting and Career Resources categories.
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Global navigation labels were changed to those most commonly proposed during testing.
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Added an events calendar.
Wireframes
In our last phase, we created a series of wireframes to illustrate the most important aspects of our redesign strategy for the UXPA website. Along with some layout changes to improve readability and visual hierarchy, we mainly focused our wireframes on improving navigation and search.
Redesign
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Restructured Home page content to create a more effective visual hierarchy and increase opportunities for interaction/conversion.
On the About page, added contextual links to guide UX students towards educational content, local navigation to allow easier movement between related pages, and restructured content.
On the Join UXPA page, restructured content, added local nav to increase visibility of sponsorship/partnership pages in the more traffic-heavy join page.
Webinar Library Redesign
UXPA Chapter Search Redesign
Added faceted search (topical filters in the Webinar Library to give UX students unaware of what to search for a starting point for the kinds of content offered, and activity filters in UXPA Chapters to sort out inactive results).
Webinar Library Redesign
Search Redesign
Added content descriptor, content filter, and date filter to help users better search through the large amount of media types and date-specific event content.
Added faceted search filters and local navigation to increase search efficiency.
Events Calendar Design
Created events sourced from upcoming conferences, chapter events, webinars, short courses, and annual events. This would aim to improve both the findability and visibility of interactive content on the UXPA site for both UX practitioners and UX students.
Global Menu Design
Established new global nav categories:
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About UXPA
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Membership
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Events
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UX Groups
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Publications
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Job Resources
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Learn UX
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Events Calendar.
Created mega-menu (horizontal drop-down) to fix display issues caused by a lack of space in the current menu, and support easier navigation for those unfamiliar with the site’s structure.
Learnings
While this project ran smoothly overall, there were plenty of learning opportunities:
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Our team did not establish frequent check-in points from the beginning, which resulted in some members doing more work than others. In the future I intend to schedule regular communication and ensure we are all aligned on what we are accountable for.
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We forgot to do a copy edit on our card sorting script, which resulted in our having to recreate and republish it. Next time I produce a survey, card sort, or any participant material, I will perform a thorough copy edit.
Challenge
The User Experience Professionals Association (UXPA) website’s information architecture needs to be redesigned to improve site structure and better meet the needs of all audiences.
Team
6 User Experience Design (UXD) students at Wilfrid Laurier University
Role
Project Coordination, Research, Design
Toolkit
Figma, Optimal Workshop, Screaming Frog's SEO Spider