I was engaged as a Lead Information Architect and UX consultant on this project. My key tasks were running a kick off workshop with the stakeholders, conducting remote tree testing and a moderated open and closed card sort, and generating a new information architecture for the site.
<strong>Project objectives</strong>
HSBC GCS wished to improve the information architecture and user experience on their area of HSBC.com. Unfortunately there was no scope for template redesign and build; we were working within the constraints of the existing system.
<strong>Project process</strong>
<strong>1. Content inventory and Tree testing</strong>
The project objectives were to improve the information architecture of the GCS area on HSBC.com. My first step was to compile an audit of all content on the existing site and identify the page title, category within the existing IA, file type (form, article etc), template, owner, and content summary.
The next step was to recreate the existing structure within Treejack, a tree testing tool, and create a set of “findbility” questions in a survey. This survey was distributed to a set of end users. I analysed the results which helped me to identify issues with the existing site structure. You are a journalist and you are visiting for the first time. You would like to find out about in. Where would you locate this information?
The results of the tree test indicated the majority of participants had problems with locating content on the site.This could indicate problems with the site structure, problems with the way in which content is organised within the site structure, or confusion over terminology or labelling.
<strong>2. Kick off workshop</strong>
I conducted Stakeholder workshop and requirements engineering to understand the project objectives, target user groups and goals, and to present the findings from the remote tree test I had conducted prior to the workshop. The output from the stakeholders in the workshop helped me to create a set of “provisional personas” (Unfortunately the user research budget for the project was restricted so these were not based on external, representative users of the system) . However they were quite a successful tool throughout the project which helped us to “bring to life” the representative tasks and goals of the various targeted users, thereby enabling the structure to be more effectively modelled.
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<strong>3. Open and closed card sort</strong>
Next, using the page titles from the content inventory, I conducted a moderated open card sort with 20 participants. This task would help me understand how end users grouped content on the site and understood the terms or labels used. This generated the primary categories for the global navigation. I then tested the results of the open card sort via a closed card sort, to evaluate the top level categories generated in the open sort.
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<strong>4. Wireframes</strong>
The final step of my role in the project was to create a set of wireframes to showcase the new structure within the existing templates. I then worked alongside a copywriter to refresh the content on the site.
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