In my earlier articles I explored the information architecture of a website for Seattle Farmers Markets. Today I want to share the results of my first user test of my initial prototype. I used the service provided by http://www.usertesting.com to run an unmoderated study with 5 participants. You can find the full test plan here. Here are my usability findings. It was very interesting to see how much useful feedback you can get for even the simplest prototype. I worked on some of the feedback and created a little before and after presentation with the corrections I made. The updated prototype is here. This is the last post on this information architecture series. Thanks for reading! … [Read more...]
Information Architecture Series: Content Maps and Storyboards
In my earlier post about target personas for farmers markets, I described the following three groups: Serious Market Shoppers (primary) Family Fun Shoppers (primary) Occasional Visitors (primary) If you want to design a fully functional website for a local farmers market (in my example, I use Seattle as the city of choice), I identified the following additional personas: Vendors (primary) Producers like Farmers, Bakeries, Brewers, Street Food Vendors, etc. Artists like musicians, painters, etc. Donors (secondary) Volunteers (secondary) Job Seekers (tertiary) To illustrate what is on people's mind when it comes to farmers markets, I created a few quick mind maps. They reflect the primary personas’ attraction to farmers markets. I used the online tool MindMeister to create these and was very pleasantly surprised by the elegant diagrams I was able to create with their free version. Serious shoppers mind map Family Fun shoppers mind … [Read more...]
Information Architecture Series: Improving Website Navigation
In this post, I am giving some examples on how to improve the website navigation of a favorite travel provider of mine, Lonely Planet. I love their offerings and spent some time ideating over what would make their website structure even more user friendly. For the overall IA, I propose the following structure which reduces existing redundancies and cleans up some inconsistent terminology in the existing structure. Home Page There are multiple problems with the current home page, such as too many navigational choices. There is a menu strip in the header and then there are three rows of 8 tiles in each row for additional navigation in the lower half of the home page. The images are all looking very similar and don’t help with navigation on those tiles. Ads are displayed too prominently. The footer shows the entire navigational structure, but just adds to the duplication. Logo and Search are switched in the header. I find it strange to place the search in the upper left corner of … [Read more...]
Information Architecture Series: Who are these people?
Shopping at the Farmers Market in Seattle Farmers markets are a popular destination in Seattle. But who exactly are the people who make them so popular? What and how do they purchase, how do they make their way around and what are their primary goals of visiting a farmers market? What makes them come back week after week? This post explores a few classic user research techniques in the context of something many people do: buying fun things at a fun place. I frequently go to the University District Farmers Market in Seattle, WA. It is one of the larger markets in the city of Seattle. What types of shoppers come to this market? I observed the following groups: Serious Market Shoppers: Pre-pared with large shopping bags and carts; they are dressed in Pacific Northwest style, which is very typ-ical for Seattle, REI fleece jackets, khaki pants, sneakers. The younger, hipper group that falls into the serious organic shoppers wears creative, artistic outfits. Hats are popular. … [Read more...]
Information Architecture Series: Business and User Goals
A look at the healthcare industry In this exploration, I am going to take a look at three health care websites to determine their business and user goals just from looking at the sites, and also by reading the "About" information. HealthCentral According to the website, Remedy Health Media is a leading publisher that provides content, tools and real stories in an engaging way. Target audience This news site is also targeted at the general population, specifically at the following user group: 50+ age group with chronic illnesses (all patient profiles I reviewed portrayed people of this group) Family members looking after the above Visitors can research a health concern by searching based on symptoms or directly looking up illnesses. At first glance, the site offers information in these categories: Health A-Z Stories provided by others Ask a question (obtain advice by experts in user forums) Business goals This site attempts to attract a large … [Read more...]
Information Architecture Series: Information Seeking
An IA adventure at Elliott Bay Book Company When it comes to finding the book you are looking for, what’s the experience like in a brick and mortar bookstore? How are books organized? What is the “user interface” that helps you find the desired title? How do you learn from finding the first title and apply that learning to finding the next? I visited Elliott Bay Book Company in Seattle, Washington. It is an iconic bookstore that has been around since 1973 and is the one and only bookstore in Seattle with a huge fan club of regular visitors. My goal today was to take a closer look at the information architecture in a traditional bookstore, and I chose this one as it's a Seattle favorite destination. When you walk in, you are greeted by friendly staff at the front desk. There are a few large tables with newest releases, organized by fiction and non-fiction, and at the back wall you see a big shelf with staff recommendations. I start there to find a book that I may want to … [Read more...]
I am agonizing over my logo
When you have a website, you must also have a logo. So it appears. Logos can be really awesome, really boring, or really outdated and sometimes also pretty ugly. Some of them are so simple yet so powerful. Those are my favorite ones. The logos that don't make you think too much. Yet they suggest something that you also don't completely understand, but you get the key idea and that's all you need. So here I go, with my company name ideawarrior, a name I came up with many years ago. I like the name. It's a good combination of fun and funky and you would think that it would be easy to come up with something. So I make a word list, it goes something like: Idea: lightbulb, light, ray, sun, bubbles, arrow up, van diagram Warrior: shield, weapon, bow, arrow, horse, horseshoe, water, waving flag, dragon, bat, wings, helmet, target, shooting, bullet I sit down and start sketching. The horse had to be drawn first to get that out of my system – everything that has a horse with it looks … [Read more...]
What this blog is all about
I have been blogging away on my German blog for many years, mostly to keep my friends and family members up-to-date with my adventures in Seattle. I left Germany in early 1993 to join Microsoft. Fresh out of college, it was a great way to get started in a fun, high energy environment, and it also dropped me smack into the middle of a vibrant music scene in a beautiful, green city with rainy days on end. Luckily, there was no shortage of good coffee in Seattle (that would have been a total dealbreaker otherwise), and I immediately loved this place! I am still here now, the weather has not driven me to Los Angeles yet, but I admit that I think about it sometimes. Since I only write about personal things on my German blog, I decided 2014 was the year to start a more business oriented blog which I will dedicate to my professional passions: software design, art, literature and angel investing. I will share many of the marvelous things I come about and hope to get connected with likeminded … [Read more...]