A List Apart has released an article explaining why you need to identify the audience and of any potential site and their goals. They explain use cases as a way of dealing with this problem.
Of course, the good people at A List Apart are correct. What they say in the article is not ground-breaking or new, it's just that many web developers ignore this step in the design process and many people who are not web developers but are involved in the design of a site are not aware of the need to look at their audience.
Indeed, Web Services has been using an audience-oriented method of designing sites since our inception. At the time it seemed like common sense, web sites are built for the people who are going to use them, not because someone in the organisation thought they had better do it because everyone else was. Without a well-defined audience and well-defined goals the site will more than likely flop. Of course, audience and goal definition is just part of the process but it should not be ignored.
Following is an outline of how Web Services work with clients to define their audiences and goals. The methods are not rigid or difficult. The key is to change the way that the design of a site is approached, to focus on the audience and ensure that their goals are met. Web Services call these sessions 'IA workshops'.
A design process
The following section outlines the process used by Web Services to design information architecture for University websites. It is not an exhaustive process. Our emphasis is on low-documentation and speed of development. There are techniques which can be used at each stage which we may not necessarily use in every case. The following is a basic process.
Before you start
Before you even being to think about how your site will work there are a number of things you should define.
Know your goals
Your department or area should have a clear goal or set of goals that are generally agreed upon and to which everyone has made a commitment.
What are your goals for your site? If you don’t know why you should have a website it is probably better that you go away and come back when you do know. Do you want to promote a course? Do you want to be able to carry out some of your business on the web? Do you want to reduce the number of enquiry phone calls your department receives?
Know your audience
It is very important to identify all possible audiences of your site so that you can tailor your information to suit them.
Who is your site for? Is it for students, potential students, staff, a broad general audience?
Know what your audience needs
Once you have identified your potential audience, now you identify why they will visit your site. What tasks are they trying to achieve and what type of information do they need to achieve them?
Finding out these things
Usually it is not only one person who decides what the goals are, who the audience is and what they need. There will probably be a group of people who generally agree but who individually may have their own ideas about what the site should do. Sometimes one group or individual is concerned only with their part of the site and not with how it is all going to fit together. Sometimes parts of the site are being prioritised for political reasons.
The job of the information architect is to take in all the points of view, synthesise the information and come up with a solution that will serve both the business (your department or Faculty etc) and the users of the website.
Sounds straightforward huh? Think again…
IA workshopDefining your goals and audience involves getting the stakeholders of the site into a room with a whiteboard and asking lots of questions. Web Services calls this process an IA workshop.
Possible invitees:
- someone from marketing
- someone who looks afer publications
- content owners
- the Dean or Head of Department or thei rrepresentative
- person who looks after your current website
There are no rules as to who should be present, those who have most knowledge about the potential audiences and their needs and wants are perfect. Customer support staff are the most useful in IA workshops. If possible, members of the target audiences are also good.
Running an IA workshop
Outcomes of an IA workshop required by the Information Architect:
- High level goals of the site
- Audience groups for site
- Tasks / information needs of all identified audiences
These things will form the underlying principles of the site design.
Guidelines for running an IA workshop
Leading the discussionExplain that you are trying to identify high level concepts for the website from the meeting, not details such as how the site will be structured or what things should be called. If participants start to stray into the area of actual site structure, steer them back to the aims of the workshop.
Identify goalsAsk the participants to identify the goals of the website. This may require some prodding as people don’t always know immediately what they are trying to achieve.Some example questions to ask:
- are you trying to promote your courses?
- do you want to enable your staff members to communicate with current students more effectively?
- do you want to increase your intake of international students?
- do you want to promote your research?
- do you want to attract more research students?
As goals are nominated, write them down on a whiteboard so everyone can see what has been decided. Also take notes for yourself (or get someone to do it for you).
Identify audienceOnce the goals are identified, ask the participants to identify potential audiences of their site. Write the audience groups on one side of the board, leave the other side free for matching with audience tasks. Try to get the participants to be specific with their audiences, for example ‘current undergraduate students’, rather than just ‘students’.Identify tasksNow, match these audiences to needs and tasks. At this point you need to explain that it is important that the needs of the users, rather than the owners of the site, should dictate. Also, that tasks should be identified, rather than just information.
Example: commencing students need to come to the university for the first time and enrol, what kind of information do they require to complete this task and are there any parts of this task that could be completed online?
It may be difficult to get participants to identify all parts of a task, or it may take a lot of time. If this is the case, make sure that you have noted down all the tasks, you can then follow up the details of each task later.
ConclusionOnce all avenues have been exhausted, give the participants an approximate time in which you will complete the IA and deliver a copy for review. If you are unsure, let them know that you will get back to them with this information. Soon after the meeting, write a brief summary of what was identified and send a copy to the stakeholders, giving them the opportunity to make any late changes.
The information gathered in this session will serve as the backbone of your site structure.
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