What Am I Testing?
I am conducting usability testing of the information architecture of my WordPress website. For my prototype test, I will first allow my testers to have a lot of input throughout the open card sorting exercise because they will be able to create their own categories. In the first half of my meetings with the users, it will be less of a ‘test’ but more of a generative exercise. I already have a lot of content to consider from The Greenhouse Trust website that needs to be sorted appropriately and to get the opinion of my peers of how these should be categorised will be very interesting. Secondly, I will be performing a test to determine whether the menu system I have created and thought to be most logical caters for different user personas. I am aiming to see if structuring, organisation and refinement of the menu system are effective to the improvement of navigation throughout the site. In turn, the time it takes to perform tasks will be drastically reduced.
Test Rationale (Revised)
Due to my test rationale from my last post not being relevant anymore, here is my new test rationale:
Hypothesis: The current navigational system is ineffective, long-winded and confusing. This leads to a time-consuming process every time the user wants to complete an action. I predict that with organisation and procedural structuring I will be able to greatly improve this time frame and the user should be under less stress to finalise a task.
Methodology: Card sorting and tree testing
Method: Half of my testing will be physical and half will be digital. I will be performing the card sorting exercise first because this way, the users will be able to create their own menu items and will not know what mine is yet. This follows nicely onto the second part where I will ask them to navigate my menu system to perform a predetermined task.
Card sorting – This is the physical half of my test. I will be conducting a hybrid card sorting session. This means the participants will be able to sort my cards into categories that I have created but will also have the freedom to label their own if they wish. I will present them with a set of cards which include all content topics within the site and I will ask the testers to sort these into categories they think are appropriate and logical for them. They will be able to write the categories they create a new set of cards and I will be able to record these results by taking a picture of it afterwards. I will be not be asking the testers to get into the character of my user personas for this exercise because I want to get the professional opinion from designers and developers who are tech-savvy.
Tree testing – This is the digital half of my test. I will ask the test subjects to get into the character of the personas I have developed for the purpose of this exercise. I will give them a task to perform without actually verbally expressing what page they will need to find. For example, if I want someone to find out how much a bottle of wine is and check the location of the building I would say “You are *insert user persona name here* and you are interested in buying a bottle of wine. You don’t know how much it will cost and you aren’t sure how long it will take to get to the shop from the city centre. Please navigate the site in the way you think is most appropriate.”
Prediction: Card testing – I expect the menu options my peers create will be very similar to the ones I have already included in my WordPress prototype however they may be worded differently. I currently have 6 menu options in my evolutionary prototype but I preferably would like less so if any of the testers solve this problem for me I will be pleased.
Tree testing – The time taken to perform simple tasks such as navigating through to an end goal will be substantially decreased and should take a minimal page clicks.
Information Flow Chart
To draft the first iteration of my menu system I created an information flow chart. As you can see from the key, boxes with solid borders represent page headings and boxes with dotted borders represent information. I start by writing down all the content options and grouping them into similar subject groups. For example, logically, ‘Find Us’ and ‘Contact Us’ fell into the ‘About’ category in my opinion. This really helped me plan out my ideas in a visual way so I could concentrate solely on the content of the website, separate to the aesthetic. In turn, this exercise naturally presented a two-tier menu system. Each category fell nicely under a group of six main headings and any spare content could be placed neatly into page content. Everything was able to be kept to one page and because it flows from left to right, this makes it easier to read as it’s natural for us to read this way.
