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Photo by Austin Wade on Unsplash

Information Architecture 

A Rock Musical Instrument Store website for local students 
Project Background

As a guitarist and vocalist in rock music society in school life, I knew that a rock musical instrument store is an important role that provided multiple services for students.

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There are lots of websites of rock music instruments existing, but most of them take priority to sell instruments. However, other services like renting practicing rooms for band and taking courses with professionals are important as well in the brick and mortar stores.

 

To integrate these services well into a website for local students who playing rock musical instruments, I did user research with stakeholders to understand the main services needed and followed the design principle of information architecture.

Timeline

Nov. - Dec. 2016

Team Members

This is an individual Project. 

I was responsible for all the research, design and evaluation for this website. 

Goal

To design a rock musical website with a clear structure that provides multiple services for local students.

My Role

As a user researcher in this project, my role was to conduct user research to understand the main services needed from the view of domain experts in the beginning and evaluate the website with the user testing in the end. Besides, I was also responsible to develop the structure, navigations, and labels for the website as an information architect. 

 

In the research phase, I interviewed the experts including shopkeepers and students in this domain. This gave a clear picture of the relationships between the target users and the store. 

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In the design phase, I defined which organization structure is used and delivered the sitemap for the website based on the insights from the research. Furthermore, I identified the main user journey and evaluated the navigations and labels, which helped me refine the structure and develop the wireframe for the pages with main services. In the end, I evaluated the website with user testing and improved it with the feedbacks from the users.

Process
IA Process.png
Research Phase

To understand the what are the main services provided and how stakeholders interact with each other in a rock musical instrument store, I conducted the semi-structured interview with 2 kinds of domain experts - shopkeepers and students in the rock music club. This allowed me to develop a domain model to clearly know how the relationship is in this field. 

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The main services on my website were also identified as the following:

  1. Rock musical instruments and equipment selling

  2. Learning courses with the professionals

  3. Practicing room booking

  4. Performance and contest sign-up

Domain model
Define & Refine

I made a decision to develop a website with a combinational organization structure. It includes the deep hierarchy for the navigations and the database to build a consistent structure for the main contents. 

 

For the scheme, I chose a hybrid organization scheme for the website. The top-level navigations are task-based which are categorized by main services while the sub-navigations are audience-based which are categorized by different instrument players (e.g. Vocalist, Guitarist). Therefore, even though the level of the hierarchy in the top menu is deep, the boundaries are clear enough between the pages under the sub-navigations.

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I conducted a tree test online in order to refine the sitemap and test the labels. The test was task-based which allowed me to find the activity which approximates what users do when navigating through a website. The result of the test helps me improve the structure of my website. 

Sitemap
Develop & Design

I developed the wireframes for the main pages which all consist of global navigation, local navigation, and associative navigation.

 

The key features under each navigation:

 

Global Navigation:

  • Horizontal top-level navigation for the main services

  • Dropped down sub-navigation in a crab-walking way

  • Breadcrumbs showing the present location of the website

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Local Navigation: 

  • Page body navigation displaying contents and lists of the services

  • Pagination showing the number of total pages and the present location in the result

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Associative Navigation & others:

  • Related pages for users avoiding zero results and continuing their searches

  • Faceted filter fro users narrowing down results in their needs

Navigation
Homepage
Product page
Guitar search result
Booking Service
Evaluation

I conducted a formative user evaluation with the paper prototype to improve the usability of the website. The participants needed to complete different tasks and were encouraged to think aloud throughout the test. The behaviors and feedback during the test helped me identify the good parts of the website and the issues which could be fixed to improve the user experience.

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Positive feedback:

  • The organization, navigation, and information on the Homepage is clear

  • The calendar feature on the page for booking a practicing room is intuitive for novices and professionals

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Issues should be improved:

  • The checkboxes in the faceted filter for searching by player on the page for booking a practicing room should be tailored to radio buttons

  • Parts of labels named by players should be tailored meaningfully (e.g. change " Vocalists" to "For Vocalists")

Reflections

It is a great experience to individually develop a website as a user researcher from the angle of information architecture. I had the reason to choose the specific structure, navigation, and labels based on the result of user research and user testing. Through iteration between designs and test, I am able to provide a user-friendly website which also fits users' needs.

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