Prototype Test Results

Card Sorting

Home

There were four main similarities spread across the menu systems and those were ‘Current events at the café’, ‘A linked to the donation site’, ‘Social media links’ and ‘Promotions’. Current events at the café will be very important to include on the homepage because there are always new things going on. These can range from evening workshops to art exhibitions in the area. During my second meeting with Tigger, it came to light that he really wants to emphasise the feeling of community in the café. The events that he holds are a perfect way to achieve this and by displaying them at the forefront of the website, The Greenhouse Trust may be able to attract new clientele as User 2 to suggested in reply to my survey. This can also fall hand-in-hand with including promotions and draw new customers in. Additionally, as a charity organisation they naturally rely heavily on donations, therefore a link to the donation site and a brief description of why you should donate should be included to boost recognition and ease-of-use. The last main similarity was the incorporation of social media links on the homepage. It is not uncommon for businesses to have this on their homepage to increase their presence over multiple social platforms, however, Robin did raise an interesting idea of which to attach social media links to a static bar that is visible from every page. I like this idea because it will encourage networking and if I was to also include a donation button then users may be psychologically more inclined to give money if they are faced with this option at the top of each page every time it refreshes.

About (and The Greenhouse)

After performing this prototype test and being able to analyse the way users have grouped content, I have come to realise I may have been looking at these two sections in the wrong way. Instead of having separate headers where the About section includes ‘Find Us’ and ‘Contact Us’ and The Greenhouse section includes content such as ‘Environmental features of The Greenhouse’ and ‘History of The Greenhouse’, the About section can inherit all the information regarding The Greenhouse. Thus, removing ‘The Greenhouse’ from the main menu options and instead potentially creating a call to action for this information in a parallax section on the homepage.

Two users suggested a separate header for Art and Literature/Writing. I had not previously considered something like this, so for my hybrid card sorting exercise to produce this kind of result proved to me how worthwhile the nature of the experiment really is. I instantly saw how this could be a fantastic idea with a lot of beneficial qualities. Firstly, this solves the issue of overcrowding of content in the Café and Shop section. This was a previous concern of mine as previously ‘Shop’ was covered the food store, wine store, bookstore and artwork for sale. Now, I can amalgamate the creative aspects of the charity all in one section. In the second-tier menu, I plan to have one option for ‘Art’ and one option for ‘Literature’. The ‘Art’ section includes a small digital art gallery, similar to the one that appears on the website now and information about the artists. Users will also be able to find information about current art exhibition on in the area that the charity is contributing to. This information will also be able to be found in the generalised ‘Events’ section, by placing it here as well I hope to boost recognition of artists work. The ‘Literature’ section will be considerably smaller and include some short pieces by local writers. When the development of the site becomes more advanced I will be looking into whether any other content can be added here.

Volunteer

The volunteer section was very similar across the board and included ‘How to volunteer’ and ‘About volunteering’. As the volunteer section is considerably smaller than the rest, all the information should be able to fit on one page. It will start with a brief introduction to what it is like to volunteer for The Greenhouse Trust and then go into more details about the roles and responsibilities there are available. At the bottom of the page will be a downloadable application form so users are able to print it off and fill it in prior to visiting the café to hand it in. At this point, I do not plan to have any second tier menu options however I will see how the website comes along in the main build.

Donate