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The Challenge
Identify an ecommerce website which demonstrates problematic information architecture or navigation lacking UX best practices, and propose a solution.
THE PROBLEM
Users of the ecommerce website face a large collection of products that exhibit inconsistant organizational structures and overall confusing navigation.
HMW
How might we restructure the website's Information Architecture & Navigation so that users locate the items they need more intuitively?
SOLUTION
By regrouping and subcategorizing the product inventory to reflect data derived from serval rounds of user interviews and card sorting, the experience will become more intuitive and therefore serve as a better tool for consumers.
All the information in this case study is my own, and does not necessarily reflect the views of Jerrys Artarama.
DEFINE
With a deeper understanding of how users were experiencing the website's navigation, it was time to begin developing a more intuitive structure for the inventory.
I chose a broad selection of products and recorded them for use in a series of card sorting exercises.
I began with an open card sort, asking participants to group the products however they liked, using as many or few groups they felt necessary.
I asked them to conclude the exercise by assigning a category name for each group they had created.
OPEN CARD SORT
Five users participated in this card sorting exercise using the collaborative platform, Miro
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With a high level overview of how users chose to group products together, I could narrow focus on how they were labeling these groups.
I recorded the group names chosen by each user into individual rows for each participant. This was to discover any similarities or patterns between them.
I utilized a simple color coding system to call out any repetitions or variations of the same concepts.
From this exercise I was able to define four clear categories including two specific name variations for each.
Below was my assumption of an intuitive architecture for the inventory using the four categories discovered in the previous exercise.
To validate my assumption, a second round of card sorting was necessary.
CLOSED CARD SORT
Using the categories discovered in the open card sort, participants were asked to complete the exercise again, using the same sampling of inventory items.
Once the sort was completed, they were asked to share their preference between the two name options given for each of the four categories.
Card Sort Takeaways
From this second card sorting exercise, I was able to define two key aspects of this research study.
A majority consensus on category names.
Which items are most commonly associated with those categories.
Below is an affinity map detailing the commonalities of how the participants categorized the inventory.
A color coding system was utilized to convey the majority occurrence of each item in relation to the chosen category.
This system served as a useful tool in understanding which products were or were not widely agreed upon by the participants.
Following the closed card sorting exercise, I had a much clearer idea of where users would most commonly expect to find items on the website.
Below is an updated architecture, based on the card sorting results.
Create
Pivoting focus to potential navigation structures, low fidelity sketches were created to illustrate how the four newly defined categories might look.
Low fidelity
Mid Fidelity
After preliminary rounds of iteration and feedback, I developed mid fidelity prototypes of the top three navigation structures.
These would serve as candidates for a deciding A/B/C test to determine which structure facilitated the best user experience.
Additionally I began to envision what the product description and checkout screens might look like.
Compiling key takeaways discovered throughout the research phase and feedback from the multiple design reviews, resulted in an immensely simpler and more intuitive navigation and information architecture.
