PRODUCT DESIGNER @ KITMAN LABS
Information architecture changes can take a lot of effort if you dont stay on top of them. We did not stay on top of things and so we needed to take a step back an assess our I.A.
Rationale
Kitman Labs main product is a web based cloud offering for sports teams to manage players. The product grew without much thought and it was agreed by all departments the information architecture needed updating. The method we eventually decided on is detailed by Chris Nodder in his Lynda.com course, Information Architecture. There are broadly 6 steps, as shown below.
Step 1
Task Identification
We, the design, product and engineering team, along with our field team, former practitioners, identified 42 tasks within our system. We wrote out these tasks from the perspective of our different users (sports scientist, S&C, physio, doctor, analyst, H.O.P.) using best practices around framing and naming them.
Step 2
Internal Card Sorting
We recruited internal stakeholders, actual practitioners, to complete a card sorting exercise in an effort to trial our test and get internal buy-in. We had already worked with some practitioners in-house, but we have a lot of customer support, all of which are ex practitioners, so there are lots of options for quick feedback. Each stakeholder was individually asked to group tasks together based on intuition. Followed by naming these groups.
Step 3
Users Card Sorting
We then recruited users to complete the card sorting exercise. Similar to the internal stakeholder trial the users were asked to group tasks together based on intuition. Followed by naming these groups.
Step 4
Refining Groups
After gathering feedback from users we looked over the findings to see any patterns. The variation was low, some outliers, but everything was consistent enough to give us confidence with a proposition for the next stage, shown here.
Step 5
Reverse Card Sorting
We ran internal and external user testing with a reverse method. Asking the same users and stakeholders to identify the group a task is associated with. These were the same tasks and grouping names identified from the initial card sorting exercise.
Step 6
Synthesis & I.A.
After assessing the results we proposed a new I.A. This was shared internally and externally, not in any rigorous way, but rather for communication and buy in. Keeping everyone aligned was important and kept momentum. This site map reflects the research and proposed I.A. We also added some style and navigation changes.
Plan + Outcomes
It’s important to say that was a ‘vision’ setting exercise. Kitman Labs is a start up, in this context it would be silly to stop all product work to implement this update, it would take too long, so we rolled out the changes incrementally over time. Targeting low hanging fruit first, then targeting important areas and then some pages were never touched, as we never got to them. There was no dedicated squad on this, there were only 2 squads at the time. The plan was more so a commitment by all of us to try achieve this, and utilise any down time or align pieces of product work with updates, so for example if some was working on the administration area for a release they might do an extra piece of work to chip away at the changes. And we would cross that off the list of things to do, so more Kanban than sprint based.
The implementation is still ongoing, we have aligned a lot of the product around this sitemap, but as new areas, unforeseen at the time, have been added, the original work is watered down. And so it’s an ongoing process and we are doing another piece of work to relook at this I.A.
The primary aim of the project was to determine an updated information architecture. We had done that, so felt happy that we identified where wanted the product to go and had set a path. But what was also great and helped, was the inclusion of multiple different stakeholders across the organisation and the strong input from users. This helped push the uptake after the ‘vision’ was set, helped us determine a good plan and get buy to do the work.
Another positive outcome was that we clearly needed a content strategy and documentation specifically around how we use language. Everyone knew that instinctively but we hadn’t done much to rectify the need until this project. So, due to us being a small start up, did what any good designer does with little time, we commandeered Polaris Content Guide and we use that as the basis for our work.