ISOW
ISOW, also known as International Students Overcoming War, is a multipurpose website designed for Wilfrid Laurier students who have previously escaped war and are looking for resources, partners who want to get involved, and donors. The goal of this project was to organize the information on this website making it accessible to all user groups, overall improving the site's information architecture. Our UX team did extensive research to understand how users group sets of data by card sorting, tree testing, and then laying out the final design on a prototype.
Design Problem
The International Students Overcoming War web page has a vast information ecosystem making it difficult for users to find the right resources.
Our Solution:
Content Inventory
Card Sort
Tree Test
Site Map
Prototype
01
Content Inventory
The first step to organizing the information in a user-friendly way was to strip all of the information off of the website so we could gain an understanding of the content ecosystem. By categorizing and assessing all existing contents, such as web pages, documents, and metadata, the project team was able to identify gaps and inconsistencies within the information provided. We arranged the sets of data into nine categories:
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Title
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Content
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Link
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External link
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Metadata
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Author, Owner, Source
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Subject matter
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Format
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Creation date
02
Card Sort
The second phase of the ISOW project involved open card sorting, allowing the team to understand how users group sets of information. Nine participants successfully completed the tasks within the study, with the median time to complete the study being 14 minutes and 9 seconds. The number of categories that participants created ranged from 3 to 8, with the average being 5.
There were many different labels suggested by our participants as they organized the information. However, there were many reoccurring category pages such as: About, Contact, Donations, Resources, Partners, and Student Information. This is important because it represents the similarity in how users would expect to find information within the ISOW website.
03
Tree Tests
The team compiled a total of two tree tests for the users to navigate through the information architecture. nine participants were gathered for this usability test and were given scenarios to navigate through the content to identify the right page for the task.
Immediately after reviewing the results of the first tree test, the team realized that there was a major issue with the information architecture. In the second tree test, the results and success rate were much higher than the first allowing the team to proceed with the design process.
04
Site Map
Once all of the testing was done, the team complied a site map allowing for an easy understanding of the new design of the information ecosystem.
The site map was divided into the different levels of the pages and what actions users would take to get to the lower page levels.
The final layout of the sitemap allowed the design team to visually understand the new layout of the website. Furthermore, the site map would assist the team in creating the final wireframe in the next stage of the design process.
05
Prototype
For the final prototype, the team created a wireframe on Adobe XD allowing us to showcase the finalized design to our client.
Conclusion
In conclusion, our work on the International Students Overcoming War website has provided us with valuable insights into effective information architecture and user experience design. By employing content inventory, card sorting, and tree testing, we were able to create a user-friendly prototype that meets the needs of various user groups. This project has enhanced our understanding of organizing complex information systems and improved our ability to design intuitive websites. These skills will be instrumental in our future endeavors as UX professionals.