INFM 700: Session 4 Techniques and Technologies Paul Jacobs The iSchool University of Maryland...

INFM 700: Session 4

Techniques and Technologies

Paul JacobsThe iSchoolUniversity of Maryland

Wednesday, Feb. 15, 2012

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Today’s Topics Recap

Process Overview

Research & Strategy

Design & Documentation (Part I)

Process

Research & Strategy

Design &Documentation

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Research & Strategy Research: identify goals & issues

User needs Organizational/context Content and other issues

Strategy: build and sell the plan

Process

Research & Strategy


Context

Content Users

Business goals, funding, politics, culture, technology, human resources

Data types, content objects, metadata, volume, existing structure

Audience, tasks, user behavior, experience, vocabulary

MR, p. 233

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Research: The Soft Side Understanding the business

What is the need? Who’s in charge? What are we trying to achieve?

Understanding the user What are their behaviors? What is the expected experience?

Process

Research & Strategy


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Research: The Soft Side (How) Understanding the business

Interviews Group meetings

Understanding the user Surveys Focus groups Interviews . . .

Process

Research & Strategy


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Surveys – How To Decide what you’d like to know

Design the survey Make questions specific Keep it short (< 10 minutes) Consider how you’re going to analyze Allow for additional information

Collect & analyze results (ideally, automate)Process

Research & Strategy


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Surveys - Example

Process

Research & Strategy


www.surveymonkey.com

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Surveys - Example

http://bailando.sims.berkeley.edu/papers/flamenco-chi03.pdf

Process

Research & Strategy


Faceted Category

Google-like Baseline

Source: Yee, Swearingen, Li, & Hearst

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Research: The Hard (Content) Side Know the content

Collect and categorize (“Noah’s Ark”) Analyze (e.g., type, format, metadata) Other (e.g., benchmarking, content mapping)

Know the user-content interface Search log analysis/statistics Studies Other (e.g., card sorting)

Process

Research & Strategy


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Research: End Goals Understand the goals of our project

Understand the user and the content Define the most important user needs Determine the best organization of content Identify issues Work toward organization/labelling/navigation schemes

Lay out steps toward implementation

Gather fodder to sell to managementProcess

Research & Strategy


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Content Analysis (“Inventory”) Gather “Representative Sample”

Different sources (e.g., marketing, support, HR) Different formats (e.g., PDF, simple HTML pages,

interactive) Different styles/types (e.g. brochureware, overviews,

outlines, detailed documents)

Organize and Annotate What is it? (“descriptive metadata”) How do I use it? (roughly, “structural metadata”) How do I find it? How do I maintain it? Who does it? (“administrative

metadata”)

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Taxonomy Building Taxonomies are at the heart of site organization

Guide site organization and navigation Make stuff easy/easier to find

Taxonomies are at the heart of user studies Find out how people conceptualize information

Process

Research & Strategy


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Taxonomy Research - Methods

Strategies LLCTaxonomy

Process

Research & Strategy


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Taxonomy – Walk-Thru

Strategies LLCTaxonomy

Process

Research & Strategy


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Research Exercises Card Sort

User Testing

Process

Research & Strategy


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Card Sorting What is it?

Identify important content from inventory Assign preliminary labels/descriptions/samples to

different pages or content groups Assemble test subjects/users Have them group content into similar “clusters” and

possible assign labels

“Open-ended” sort – start just with the raw content or categories

“Closed” sort – once you have categories, have users assign content to your defined groups

Process

Research & Strategy


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Card Sorting Why would we want to do this?

What do we learn? What are the alternatives? How does this compare?

What do we do if things don’t “fit”?

When do we use an open-ended sort? A closed sort?

Process

Research & Strategy


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Card Sorting – After Sorting Record the results

Spreadsheet? Pictures/graphs

Analyze/cluster Identify groups Identify outliers Identify issues

Organize the content

Document

Re-test

Process

Research & Strategy


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Card Sort – Example Report

Organizing and labeling

The comments from each interview group were mail-merged in MS Word and printed on stickies.

An “open sort” was done to find patterns in and organize the data:

What high-level client tasks were suggested by the comments?

Were there similar or related comments across interview groups?

If there were similar or related comments across interview groups, what new or improved capabilities did they suggest?

© Vanguard, 2005

Process

Research & Strategy


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Exercise (Overview)

Start with a stack of cards (one item per card)

Users sort cards into groups that make sense to them

Process

Research & Strategy


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Exercise - Instructions

Process

Research & Strategy


Group items into categories that make sense

Assign a label to each group (write this down separately for now)

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Exercise – Closed - Instructions

Process

Research & Strategy


Assign items to the following categories:

Prospective Students

Faculty & Staff

Research

Student Affairs

Alumni & Friends

Programs

About iSchool

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Exercise - Analysis What did we learn about the iSchool site?

If this were real, … What might we do differently if re-designing? What changes might be recommend?

What did we learn about card sorting?

Process

Research & Strategy


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User Studies

Process

Research & Strategy


Why do we do user studies?

How do we do user studies? Decide what we need to know (e.g., what works, what

doesn’t, priority tasks, how they find stuff, what’s easy and what’s hard to find)

Design the test (range of users, difficulties) Collect data Analyze

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User Studies - Exercise

Process

Research & Strategy


You’re involved in a redesign of the site www.iainstitute.org

As a group, spend 10 minutes looking over the site

Conduct a user study (about 20 minutes) Determine what you need to know Identify a user Present the instructions to the user Have them do the test Analyze and report

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From Research to Strategy What have we learned from our research?

What do we do next?

Process

Research & Strategy


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Strategy Goal of IA Strategy

Elements of IA Strategy (e.g., TACT) What will it do? How? Impact (e.g., use of tools, technology, content, vendors,

people) How much will it cost? What are the risks?

What’s the Output?

(see, e.g., Weather.com report, MR p. 281)

Process

Research & Strategy


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The Acme Component Organization’s IA PlanSeptember 2005, Best Practices “Simplifying Information Architecture”

Process

Research & Strategy


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Example Case Study

Process

Research & Strategy


http://terpconnect.umd.edu/~psjacobs/RUMM_Handout_or__final__paper.pps

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Recap Research

Why do we do it? How do we do it? Focus areas: users, organization, content Sample methods – surveys, card sorting, studies Deliverables

Strategy Purpose Deliverables – presentations & plans

Process

Research & Strategy


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Segue: Strategy to Design

Process

Research & Strategy


Strategy has two purposes Communicate Articulate (abstract, top-down)

Now move toward implementation

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Design and Documentation Deliverables

Process

Research & Strategy


Conceptual Diagrams

Blueprints (structural)

Wireframes (physical)

Text (e.g., reports)

Presentations and meetings

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Blueprints - Overview

Process

Research & Strategy


Can show organization, navigation and/or labeling

Range from abstract to detailed

Related to “site maps”

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Blueprints (top-down)

Process

Research & Strategy


M&R p. 299

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Wireframes - Overview

Process

Research & Strategy


“Get Physical”

Move from site level to page level

Inherently constrained by screen real estate

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Main Page Wireframe

Logo Banner Ad orInternal

Promotion

Cards Gift ShopInvitations

Home | Help | Login/SignoutSearch | Site Index

My CardshopGift Certificates Promotions

partner ad/offer space

Reasons to SendBirthday Subchannel | Subchannel |Subchannel Subchannel | Subchannel | more...

Channel Subchannel | Subchannel |Subchannel Subchannel | Subchannel | more...

Welcome, Tim! Dad's Day is June 18th.Send a card for free.

CardThumbnail

CardThumbnail

CardThumbnail

title: text textMore Father'sDay Cards

title: text textMore SummerCards

title: text textMore MusicCards

Calendar full calendar

date Holiday date editorial holiday date editorial holiday date editorial holiday date editorial holiday date editorial holidaydate Holiday date editorial holiday date editorial holiday date editorial holiday date editorial holiday date...

CollectionsMusicTVMoviesStationeryTeen LoungeAfrican AmericanSpanishlReligious

Search Assistant

Don't know where to start? I can help you SEARCH

PromoImage(Music)

New Cards | Most Popular | Highest Rated

Banner Ad orInternal

Promotion

SearchAssistant

Image

learn more | about us | investor relations | advertise with us | privacy policyjob opportunities | contact us | terms of service

Header navigation forsite-wide functions.

Tabs represent majorcategories of services

Primary cardclassification scheme.

Expand level twochannels as much as

possible.

Promote searchingusing the wizard on

home. Position tocatch users not

satisfied by channels.

Process

Research & Strategy


M&R p. 308

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XHTML Wireframes

© Anders Ramsay 2006

GLOBAL NAV

HEADERUSER INFO

FOOTER

LOCAL NAV

BASIC SEARCH

COMMUNITY

PAGE CONTENT PAGE CONTROLS

PAGINATION

MARKETING

SITE BRAND

drawing-based… xhtml…

Process

Research & Strategy


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XHTML Wireframes


Process

Research & Strategy



drawing-based…

xhtml…

Page header

SITE BRANDHEADER

USER INFO

FOOTER

LOCAL NAV

BASIC SEARCH

COMMUNITY

[site brand]

Category 1Category 2Category 3Category n

Copyright 2006, All Rights Reserved | Back to Top | Privacy Policy | Terms & Conditions

HOME | PRODUCTS | CONTACT | ABOUT | HELP

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Section HeaderLorem ipsum dolor sit amet, consectetuer adipiscing elit. Duis a odio non eros semper bibendum. Donec molestie tincidunt odio. In hac habitasse platea dictumst. Cras nonummy feugiat nisl. Nunc at erat vitae tortor dapibus volutpat. Proin quis purus a velit feugiat eleifend. Curabitur eget sapien. Suspendisse mollis.

PAGINATION

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Search

MARKETING

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GLOBAL NAV

iSchoolCopyright © 2004-2006 Todd Warfel. These slides may not be reproduced or distributed without prior written consent from Messagefirst http://messagefirst.com

Traditional Wireframing Methods

FlashFlash HTMLHTML Illustrator, ID, Illustrator, ID, VisioVisio

Initial SetupInitial Setup ***** ***** *****MaintenanceMaintenance ***** ***** *****

ReuseReuse ***** ***** *****Delivery Delivery MethodMethod ***** ***** *****

Behavior Behavior NotesNotes ***** ***** *****Tool Tool

KnowledgeKnowledge ***** ***** *****RIAsRIAs ***** ***** *****

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Recap Research & Strategy

Purpose – Learn, focus, define objectives, get buy-in Deliverables – User studies, taxonomies, plans

Design & Documentation Purpose – Define it before you build it Deliverables – Blueprints, wireframes, reports, more

plans

Process

Research & Strategy


INFM 700: Session 4 Techniques and Technologies Paul Jacobs The iSchool University of Maryland...

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