Information Architecture

Sherwin-Williams Redesign

The HR Employee Benefits department at Sherwin-Williams needed an easy-to-use system for maintaining their own content with the upcoming Open Enrollment season. The department was also in need of an intuitive user interface to reduce user confusion thus reducing the number of employees calling into the department with questions.

Site Objectives

Internal & External Target Audiences

  • Corporate IT Internet Services
  • Corporate HR Employee Benefits
  • Sherwin-William Employees

Business Goals

  • Enhance the intranet site to provide an engaging and informative experience.
  • Reduce the number of incoming calls to Employee Benefits by 25%.

User Goals

  • "I want to learn more about the benefit package options and costs for Open Enrollment."
  • "I want answers to my benefits questions about features and coverage."

Steps to Development

  • Performed a competitive analysis of Employee Benefits sites within the manufacturing industry
  • Built an intuitive sitemap for the global navigation system
  • Crafted wireframes to conceptualize the site's layout including the most Frequently Asked Questions on the Home page
  • Structured the site within Serena Collage CMS using a nodular system
  • Developed the layout pages in compliance with the Chameleon Intranet Style Guide using HTML and CSS

The Final Product

Employee Benefits received their own project within the organization's CMS to maintain and update their time sensitive content with minimal direction.

The department experienced a 15% reduction in employee question calls within the 1st month after deployment.

They were very satisfied with the results - not only did they end up with a user-friendly content solution, but their users, the employees, gained an informative and valuable resource for all their employee benefits questions.

Philips Information Architecture

The Field Service Engineers needed a virtual system that would allow them to find spare parts where ever they might be in the world at whatever time of day or night on a service call without depending on the Customer Support department.

Site Objectives

Here are the objectives of the expandable, visual hierarchical system, eSPF.

Internal & External Target Audiences

  • Customer Support Engineers - Domestic and Global
  • Systems Engineers
  • Field Service Engineers

Business Goals

  • Reduce the number of calls and the time spent on those calls within the Customer Support department.
  • Increase the effectiveness and efficiency of the Field Service Engineers when servicing customers in the field.
  • Create an easy to user interface to optimize searchability for new and current Nuclear Medicine Systems.

User Goals

  • "I need to find spare parts without depending on Customer Support."
  • "I need to be able to access this information anytime and anywhere while I'm out in the field."
  • "I want an intuitive system to find the spare parts I need easily and quickly."

Steps to Development

  • Responsible for disseminating information from Nuclear Medicine System BOMs (consisting of over 10,000 parts), 2D drawings, service manuals and documentation.
  • Developed method for extracting spare parts from system BOM while maintaining system structure.
  • Designed process for collecting, structuring and importing data into database for the Technical Publications department.
  • Manipulated and hot-spotted graphics, drawings and photos for visual aids to increase ease of use of the system.

The Final Product

With the first implemented Nuclear Medicine systems deployed, eSPF was well received by the Field Service Engineers.

"eSPF is just the system we needed. It saves so much time with minimal effort."

Legacy systems are still be imported into eSPM today.

Arduino.cc Information Architecture

The confusing global navigation of the Arduino.cc caused a higher bounce rate than the company had anticipated leading to an Information Architecture analysis and proposal.

Arduino.cc is in need of help for their entire navigation system. The site needs to increase its learnability as it could be very confusing to a new visitor whose accustom to a specific set of standards when navigating the web. The visitor could easily get lost within seconds and become frustrated enough to leave Arduino.cc altogether.

The product is complex enough that the site should enhance its navigability to build a better understanding with the potential customer to ease them effortlessly into the new technology.

To begin, the global navigation system should be simplified with a reduction in the number of navigational tabs. This might clear up any confusion pertaining to the differences between highly correlated terms (Buy, Download, Products) on the tabs. By grouping all content for selling products together and all content for educating new customers together, an intuitive and effective organization schema could be implemented.

Next, a site-specific search system needs integrated into the global navigational system.

Customizing this feature versus using Google would be a solid investment as Arduino is a company that relies primarily on their site for selling products.

The major search engines are not capable of optimizing the context of every site sufficiently. The content owners of the site have a solid grasp of the industry concepts, jargon and product line to build an efficient search system. Plus, the user does not necessarily want to see Google across their site search results; they would want to see that they are still active on Arduino.cc.

The final step to prevent any navigational problems would be the implementation of breadcrumbs across the entire site. When the user visits a page now, the primary navigational tab is highlighted, but beyond that, there is no other indication for where the user is on the site. Before adding the breadcrumbs, there are several links that need to be re-organized. For instance, there could be a navigation dropdown menu for Reference, Language, Libraries, Comparison, and Changes as we see with the Buy or Support sections. Another idea would be to include Foundations, Hacks and Links along with Examples in the dropdown menu under Learning. Once any confusing structure issues are straightened out, the breadcrumbs can be efficiently set up to support the site.

Besides the faults of Arduino.cc, the site does have several strengths. Beyond its crowded pages, the content is solid – it just needs to be rearranged so that the users can thoroughly benefit from what the company has to offer. Also, the Getting Started section is a great value added guide for welcoming new customers.

Ardunio.cc 1 Ardunio.cc 2 Ardunio.cc 3 Ardunio.cc 4 Ardunio.cc 5

CHC Physical Therapy Redesign

CHC Physical Therapy and its web properties, Body Phyx, Golf Phyx, and the Performance Phyx, needs updated for the new era - to create a consistent "look and feel" across the CHC brands and to provide an engaging and enjoyable experience for the end user.

Designing the User Experience

According to Jesse James Garrett, the field of User Experience covers a wide range (from conception to completion) of elements:

  • User Needs & Site Objectives
  • Content Requirements & Functional Specifications
  • Interaction Design & Information Architecture
  • Information Design & Visual Design

As a solo designer for this project, I've brainstormed about the various elements that go into the creation of the optimal user and have drawn the following sketch - aligning aspects of Garrett's elements with today's digital landscape.

User Experience Design Elements

Identifying the Objectives

Target Audience

The client already has 4 pretty well-defined target audiences that it wants to re-purpose its site content around - The Golfer, The Young Athlete, The Baby Boomer, and The Weekend Warrior. Later in the process, I researched and found a 5th target group - The Desk Jockey - which the client has decided to implement.

Personas

The Young Athlete
Persona of The Young Athlete's Parent
The Weekend Warrior
Persona of The Weekend Warrior

Look & Feel

Energized and powerful (sports physical therapy) meets compassionate and natural (holistic wellness approach)

Business Goals

  • Strengthen the company's brand to provide a trustworthy, sophisticated and memorable experience.
  • Increase newsletter subscriptions by 25%.
  • Increase leads from the site by 15%.
  • Inspire loyalty among existing patients.

User Goals

  • "I want to learn more about this clinic to determine whether or not it fits my budget and my schedule."
  • "I want to request an appointment for physical therapy immediately."
  • "I want engaging and educational content about the treatment process."

Conceptualizing the Design

Brand Message Concept Map

CHC Brand

Wirefames & Mockups

Here is a sketch of a potential wireframe incorporating the sister brands into the Home page of CHC. This variation could improve brand consistency across all web properties.

My Sketch of Wireframe for CHC

For the following CHC prototype , I thought I would work with my Axure RP Pro 7.0 software. This page illustrates the standard conventions and maintains the separate identities of the target audiences.

Axure Prototype for CHC

Design & Development

Unfortunately, I did not get to see my project through until the end due to personal reasons.