User-centered Navigation Re- Design for Web-based Information Systems

Size: px

Start display at page:

Download "User-centered Navigation Re- Design for Web-based Information Systems"

Spencer Evans
6 years ago
Views:

1 User-centered Navigation Re- Design for Web-based Information Systems, Department of Information Business, Bernd Simon, Department of Information Systems, Vienna University of Economics and Business Administration Presented at the AMCIS 2000

2 Aim - The Project Create a new navigation structure for the university s home page. Organize web objects Hierarchical classification scheme/directory structure Existing classification schemes (NAICS, ACM) Developement of a custom hierarchical directory structure with user participation Page 2

3 Rational for User Participation Increased usability - the structure developed reflects the way users would organize information. Reduced subjectivity - the influence of the developers and interest groups is kept to a minimum. Higher level of acceptance - user participation in the design process results in a higher level of acceptance of the final web design. Page 3

4 Implementation Re-design of the logic structure Vienna University of Economics and Business Administration Roadmap for Re-design Audience definition Web objects identification Card sorting Model representation Category identification Category evaluation Model visualization Usability testing First part is based on Fuccella and Pizzolato, ITG Newsletter 1998 Page 4

5 Re-design of the logic structure Vienna University of Economics and Business Administration Re-Design of the logic Structure Audience definition Web objects identification Card sorting Category identification Category evaluation logic Model Page 5

6 Re-Design of the logic Structure I Audience definition - find target groups. Traditional market research data Log file analysis User surveys Web object identification - what information is needed/available? Top-hits list from log file analysis User survey Analysis of search engine queries (missing objects) Time restrictions: Selection of representative objects Page 6

7 Re-Design of the logic Structure II Card sorting - case studies to understand the users concept of how information should be organized. Group cards into sets and name the sets Appr. 100 cards take 30 minutes 5 to 10 users per target group Page 7

8 Re-Design of the logic Structure III Category identification - the project team compiles a preliminary logic structure. Identify categories needed plus structure Specify category labels Provide accurate category description (maintenance handbook) Portal Staff Services Students Services... Categories... Web Objects Page 8

9 Re-Design of the logic Structure IV Category evaluation - do the category labels and descriptions reflect the users concept? User survey: Provide the users with the category structure and ask them where they would expect to find several web objects in this structure. Consensus rate >70% (Fuccella and Pizzolato) Low consensus rate: Categories and descriptions are inappropriate. Go back to category identification. Page 9

10 Implementation Vienna University of Economics and Business Administration Prototype Implementation logic Model Model representation Model visualization Usability testing Page 10

11 Prototype Implementation I Model Representation - directed acyclic graph. Portal Staff Services Students Services... Categories... Web Objects Page 11

12 Prototype Implementation II Visualization - e.g. multilevel overview Page 12

13 Prototype Implementation III Usability testing Expert review, 5-8 users per group identify 80% of usability flaws. User test See literature. Page 13

14 Re-design of the logic structure Vienna University of Economics and Business Administration Lessons Learned Audience definition Web objects identification Card sorting Category identification Category evaluation Page 14

15 Lessons Learned I Audience definition If user groups exhibit fundamentally different needs (students, staff members), divide the navigation structure. Web object identification Top-hits lists from log files are often misleading (technical and organizational reasons). We used the user survey for the category evaluation also to verify the top hits list. Page 15

16 Lessons Learned II Card sorting We used too many cards (120) which took longer than 40 min. We only used printed cards. We had 20 users (10 students, 10 staff) to sort cards; they made quite different suggestions. Better: Use computer based tools; if possible webbased tools (no installation) to get a bigger sample Use random or stratified sample to reduce needed time. Page 16

17 Lessons Learned III Category identification The more users do card sorting, the more difficult is category identification. Use many users for card sorting (web-based) + support category identification with cluster analysis tools as opposed to the case study approach. Category evaluation We surveyed 1,140 users (929 students, 182 staff, 21 unidentified) to verify classification for about 120 web objects (online questionaire). For most web objects consensus rate was significantly below 70%. Page 17

18 Resulting Home page Page 18

19 Usage for E-Commerce Sites Find or improve a usable structure for: Services offered by companies to its employees. Many different products/services offered by B2B and B2C sites. Services and Information offered by a broker. Page 19

Siebel 8.1.x Fundamentals Student Guide

Siebel 8.1.x Fundamentals Student Guide D72466GC10 Edition 1.0 April 2011 Part Number - Applied Copyright 2011, Oracle and/or its affiliates. All rights reserved. Disclaimer This document contains proprietary