From Construct to Structure: Information Architecture from Mental Models

1. From Construct to Structure:Information Architecture from Mental Models Peter Merholz and Jeffrey Veen Adaptive Path http://adaptivepath.com/workshops/ui6

2. Introductions – Peter Merholz • Partner, Adaptive Path • Formerly Creative Director of Epinions.com • Memberships – AIGA Experience Design, ASIS&T Information Architecture SIG, ACM SIGCHI • Conferences – Web.Builder, Web ‘98 to ‘01, ASIS&T Summits 2000, 2001, IA2000 Conference • Roustabout on mailing lists (notably SIGIA-L and CHI-Web) • Publisher of http://peterme.com/ - Personal musings • I practice information architecture, but don’t call myself an information architect • peterme@adaptivepath.com Peter Merholz and Jeffrey Veen · {peterme, jeff}@adaptivepath.com · Patterns and Pathways

3. Introductions – Jeffrey Veen • Partner, Adaptive Path • Former Executive Director, Interface, at Hotwired/Lycos • Author, The Art and Science of Web Design and The Hotwired Guide to Style • Advisory Board Member, Web ‘99 to ‘01 • Conferences – User Experience World Tour, Thunder Lizard, others too numerous to mention • jeff@adaptivepath.com Peter Merholz and Jeffrey Veen · {peterme, jeff}@adaptivepath.com · Patterns and Pathways

4. What Is Information Architecture? Information architecture is thestructural design of the information space to facilitate intuitive access to content Peter Merholz and Jeffrey Veen · {peterme, jeff}@adaptivepath.com · Patterns and Pathways

5. Structural Design of the Information Space… IA is the means by which we get from a pile of stuff to a structured experience. Peter Merholz and Jeffrey Veen · {peterme, jeff}@adaptivepath.com · Patterns and Pathways

6. …To Facilitate Intuitive Access to Content Intuitive access means meeting user expectations. Peter Merholz and Jeffrey Veen · {peterme, jeff}@adaptivepath.com · Patterns and Pathways

7. Common Information Architecture Problems • Information structures that resemble a company’s org chart • Your users don’t care what department you’re in Peter Merholz and Jeffrey Veen · {peterme, jeff}@adaptivepath.com · Patterns and Pathways

8. Information structures that reflect a designers’ bias • Jargon, industry standards Peter Merholz and Jeffrey Veen · {peterme, jeff}@adaptivepath.com · Patterns and Pathways

9. Structures that are not extensible • Making changes requires starting from scratch Peter Merholz and Jeffrey Veen · {peterme, jeff}@adaptivepath.com · Patterns and Pathways

10. Structures that are not extensible Peter Merholz and Jeffrey Veen · {peterme, jeff}@adaptivepath.com · Patterns and Pathways

11. How Do You Create an Intuitable Information Architecture? At the highest level, you…. • Research target population • Develop mental model diagrams from that research • Map content to the mental models • Derive a top-down structure based on audiences and their tasks • Derive a bottom-up structure based on content attributes Peter Merholz and Jeffrey Veen · {peterme, jeff}@adaptivepath.com · Patterns and Pathways

12. What is a Mental Model? How the user thinks about and approaches their tasks and goals, usually defined within a system of interaction Peter Merholz and Jeffrey Veen · {peterme, jeff}@adaptivepath.com · Patterns and Pathways

13. What is a Mental Model? Talk to spouse Look in fridge Clip coupons Look for discounts Does the car need gas? Prepare shopping list Plan meals How much time do I have? Grocery Shopping Peter Merholz and Jeffrey Veen · {peterme, jeff}@adaptivepath.com · Patterns and Pathways

14. Approach for This Workshop • Present a methodology for taking user research data and deriving an information architecture from it • Combination of lecture and activities (single and group) • Process-oriented—step-by-step Peter Merholz and Jeffrey Veen · {peterme, jeff}@adaptivepath.com · Patterns and Pathways

15. Ultimate Design Goal • An information architecture that corresponds to your users’ mental models… Talk to spouse Look in fridge Clip coupons Does the car need gas? Look for discounts Plan meals Prepare shopping list How much time do I have? Peter Merholz and Jeffrey Veen · {peterme, jeff}@adaptivepath.com · Patterns and Pathways

16. Ultimate Design Goal, Pt 2 • An information architecture that corresponds to your users’ mental models… • …that also meets your business’ needs Talk to spouse Look in fridge Clip coupons $ Does the car need gas? Look for discounts Plan meals Prepare shopping list How much time do I have? Peter Merholz and Jeffrey Veen · {peterme, jeff}@adaptivepath.com · Patterns and Pathways

17. The High-Level Process – Two Tracks Peter Merholz and Jeffrey Veen · {peterme, jeff}@adaptivepath.com · Patterns and Pathways

18. Why Perform Task Analysis? • Prototyping does not provide any rigorous and thorough way to ensure the design meets all the user and business requirements. Prototyping is hit-and-miss. • Provides a way to trace back all aspects of the user interface to the user task flow and business requirements. • Helps designers focus on the operational problems to solve rather than implementation problems. Peter Merholz and Jeffrey Veen · {peterme, jeff}@adaptivepath.com · Patterns and Pathways

19. The Goal of Task Analysis A complete mental model diagram – collections of tasks in ever-more-general groupings Peter Merholz and Jeffrey Veen · {peterme, jeff}@adaptivepath.com · Patterns and Pathways

20. In The Beginning, We Talk to the Users… Peter Merholz and Jeffrey Veen · {peterme, jeff}@adaptivepath.com · Patterns and Pathways

21. Types of User Research • Conceptual research (User Interviews, Contextual Inquiry, Surveys) • Preference research (Surveys, Focus Groups, Interviews, Card Sorting) • Ability research (Prototypes, Usability Testing, Log Analysis, Customer Feedback Analysis) Peter Merholz and Jeffrey Veen · {peterme, jeff}@adaptivepath.com · Patterns and Pathways

22. User Research – Understand Your Audience • Examine target market data • Examine competitive analysis data • Examine usability data • Examine log data • Form groups of target audiences with descriptions and priorities • Later, possibly re-define the groups as users define themselves Peter Merholz and Jeffrey Veen · {peterme, jeff}@adaptivepath.com · Patterns and Pathways

23. User Research – Prepare Interview Questions • Select a workflow to explore. • Learn domain vocabulary and player names. • Employ ethnographic inquiry—to encourage open answers, rather than to lead the interviewee in any preconceived direction. • The written questions become prompts in a conversation, rather than a verbatim script. • Determine if face-to-face or telephone interviews are appropriate. • Alternate: user representatives Peter Merholz and Jeffrey Veen · {peterme, jeff}@adaptivepath.com · Patterns and Pathways

24. User Research – Conduct Interviews - Protocol • Alter the questions as needed to meet the mood, tone, personality, and professional status of each interviewee. • Focus on exploring all the tasks in the workflow. • The key verb is “do” not “feel.” • Don’t assume the Web or other technological solutions Peter Merholz and Jeffrey Veen · {peterme, jeff}@adaptivepath.com · Patterns and Pathways

25. User Research – Conduct Interviews - Process • Take as-close-to-verbatim notes as is feasible • Type yourself • Have someone else listen and type • Tape-record and transcribe (get permission!) • Estimate 1 hour per interview, plus one hour cleaning up notes • Interview at least 5 people per audience type • End Result: Detailed notes from a series of interviews Peter Merholz and Jeffrey Veen · {peterme, jeff}@adaptivepath.com · Patterns and Pathways

26. …And Then We Begin To Analyze The User… Peter Merholz and Jeffrey Veen · {peterme, jeff}@adaptivepath.com · Patterns and Pathways

27. User Data Analysis – What It Is • An extremely detailed analysis of your users’ tasks in accomplishing their goal • A de-personalized method of understanding your target audience • All users within a particular audience set are lumped together • Less concerned with sequential order of tasks than with sensible grouping of tasks Peter Merholz and Jeffrey Veen · {peterme, jeff}@adaptivepath.com · Patterns and Pathways

28. User Data Analysis – Analyze Notes • Read over interview transcripts, scanning for ‘tasks’ • Copy each task to the atomic task table. • As you interview more users, you will notice patterns. Group similar atomic tasks together under one task name. • Change these groups as the patterns grow and shift. • Alternate: white board task analysis • Estimate 4 hours per interview Peter Merholz and Jeffrey Veen · {peterme, jeff}@adaptivepath.com · Patterns and Pathways

29. User Data Analysis – Develop Conceptual Groups • Group the Tasks into conceptual groups based on: • Steps the users described • Similarity of tasks • Determine which conceptual groups apply to the system. • Do this for each audience, if there are multiple audiences. • Compare results between audiences and combine if appropriate. • Alphabetize conceptual groups for easy reference Peter Merholz and Jeffrey Veen · {peterme, jeff}@adaptivepath.com · Patterns and Pathways

30. User Data Analysis – End Result • A set of conceptual groups and their constituent tasks for each audience • An appreciation for which tasks are common and more important Peter Merholz and Jeffrey Veen · {peterme, jeff}@adaptivepath.com · Patterns and Pathways

31. …Leading To A Model Of The User’s Understanding… Peter Merholz and Jeffrey Veen · {peterme, jeff}@adaptivepath.com · Patterns and Pathways

32. Mental Model Diagram – What It Is • A simple visualization of an audience’s collective mental model • With Task Analysis, you broke things down into their most basic elements • With the Mental Model, you build them back up into meaningful groups • Meaningful groups are presented left-to-right, across a landscape Peter Merholz and Jeffrey Veen · {peterme, jeff}@adaptivepath.com · Patterns and Pathways

33. A Portion of a Mental Model Peter Merholz and Jeffrey Veen · {peterme, jeff}@adaptivepath.com · Patterns and Pathways

34. Mental Model Diagram – Building It • Copy all the conceptual groups into a drawing tool (we use Visio) • Gather these groups into increasingly general super-groups • Arrange the super-groups into a meaningful order, if possible Peter Merholz and Jeffrey Veen · {peterme, jeff}@adaptivepath.com · Patterns and Pathways

35. Mental Model Diagram – Principles • A team effort – though started by an individual, iterated with feedback from team members and clients • Make your super-groups verbs, not nouns Peter Merholz and Jeffrey Veen · {peterme, jeff}@adaptivepath.com · Patterns and Pathways

36. Meanwhile… Someone Soaks In The Content Peter Merholz and Jeffrey Veen · {peterme, jeff}@adaptivepath.com · Patterns and Pathways

37. The Content Audit • Developed by another member of your team • A content audit is an inventory of all the content and functionality on the current site, or otherwise available to the project • Doesn’t need to be detailed, but does need to be thorough • This inventory is crucial for the next step in the process Peter Merholz and Jeffrey Veen · {peterme, jeff}@adaptivepath.com · Patterns and Pathways

38. …So We Can Figure Out How What We Have Compares To What They Want Peter Merholz and Jeffrey Veen · {peterme, jeff}@adaptivepath.com · Patterns and Pathways

39. Comparison of Mental Model to Current Features, Content, and Business Goals • This is where it begins to come together • Slot content, functionality, and business goals where it supports audiences’ mental model • Make sure to address every significant content area • If this is a new property and there are not many explicit features, etc., use this to drive product requirements Peter Merholz and Jeffrey Veen · {peterme, jeff}@adaptivepath.com · Patterns and Pathways

40. Comparison – Very Much a Team Effort • Clients and stakeholders are essential in this process • Need domain expertise to ensure completeness Peter Merholz and Jeffrey Veen · {peterme, jeff}@adaptivepath.com · Patterns and Pathways

41. Comparison – Gap Analysis • Ideal – Every task in the audiences’ mental model is served by content and functionality • Practical – That is never the case Peter Merholz and Jeffrey Veen · {peterme, jeff}@adaptivepath.com · Patterns and Pathways

42. Comparison – Gap Type 1 – User Needs But No Supporting Material • Determine if new material is needed here • Could simply be where the user will not be engaged in the Web site Peter Merholz and Jeffrey Veen · {peterme, jeff}@adaptivepath.com · Patterns and Pathways

43. Comparison – Gap Type 2 – Supporting Material But No User Need • Could be extraneous material not worth maintaining • Could be important material not addressed in the mental model for some reason (i.e., didn’t talk to a certain type of user) Peter Merholz and Jeffrey Veen · {peterme, jeff}@adaptivepath.com · Patterns and Pathways

44. Let’s Look At What We Have • A diagram depicting the audience’s mental model across the top, and the company’s supporting material beneath it • ‘Fuzzy’ user data has developed into a solid, rigorous model • A foundation from which to build the information architecture Peter Merholz and Jeffrey Veen · {peterme, jeff}@adaptivepath.com · Patterns and Pathways

45. And Now We Can Put It All Together… Peter Merholz and Jeffrey Veen · {peterme, jeff}@adaptivepath.com · Patterns and Pathways

46. Designing the Information Architecture So how do we get from the pile of content and features to a meaningful structured experience? Peter Merholz and Jeffrey Veen · {peterme, jeff}@adaptivepath.com · Patterns and Pathways

47. Develop an Information Architecture in 2 E-Z Steps • Organize information according to user expectations • Label content areas using familiar language Peter Merholz and Jeffrey Veen · {peterme, jeff}@adaptivepath.com · Patterns and Pathways

48. Two Paths to an Information Architecture • Task-based information architecture • Top-down approach • Tasks become major content ‘buckets’ • Non-standard • Analytico-synthetic information architecture • Bottom-up approach • Take all the content and features apart (analysis) • Then put it all back together again (synthesis) • What most people think of when they think of “information architecture” Peter Merholz and Jeffrey Veen · {peterme, jeff}@adaptivepath.com · Patterns and Pathways

49. The Two Paths, Diagrammed Peter Merholz and Jeffrey Veen · {peterme, jeff}@adaptivepath.com · Patterns and Pathways

50. Things To Remember – and Forget Remember: • Everything needs to have a place in the architecture – but not necessarily only one way to get to it. • Formality of this process is up to you Forget: • How content is produced • How your company is structured Peter Merholz and Jeffrey Veen · {peterme, jeff}@adaptivepath.com · Patterns and Pathways