work    redesign website menu

client

I chose to work on this project for the capstone course (HCI 599) of my Master's degree in Human-Computer Interaction from DePaul University. At the time, I was working for the State of Idaho's Legislative Services Office (LSO). The LSO is responsible for translating the public will into policy for the state, levying taxes, appropriating public funds, and overseeing the administration of state agencies. You can access their main website here: https://legislature.idaho.gov

objective

The main menu on the LSO website could benefit from a deep dive into (and possible redesign of) the information architecture.

results

The scope of this project was minimized due to the limited access to key people for the project, while the legislature was in session. Thus, this project took a narrow peek into the one-sided view of the constituent user. Through various methods I learned about the existing IA of the website and its corresponding main menu, I evaluated the subjective usability of that main menu, I then redesigned it and evaluated the subjective usability of the redesign. The redesign improved the subjective usability of the main menu from a below-average System Usability Scale (SUS) score of 54 to an above-average score of 81.

The positive results from this project should not be used in isolation. The scope and timeframe of the project limited access to people and resources important to the process, and these results should be combined with further research.

My efforts and final report were rewarded with a letter grade of A.

my roles

research, analytics, ux design, user testing

tools

TREEJACK TEST

OPEN CARD SORT

SITEMAP

HTML5

JAVASCRIPT

process and methods

understand • empathize

content inventory and audit

• The organization of the existing information architecture (IA) is in fair condition, and most of the content had been grouped together in a logical way.
• However, the 11 labels in the existing main menu do not match the top level structure of the existing IA.
• Also, 3 of the 11 labels in the main menu point to websites outside of this website - so 3 links in the main menu of this website take you to other websites
• The home page is the only webpage with this main menu of 11 labels. All subpages have a different main menu with 7 labels, and these more closely match the structure of the existing IA.

user interviews

• Google is the preferred way to find information online, because it is difficult to find information on this website
• Users rely on other sources, such as newspapers and neighbors, to find information, because the website is difficult to use.
• Website information seems to be hidden and buried, users spend time "digging" into the website to find what they need.
• Need more links between related content.
• The website works for users, but they expressed a need to make it easier to use.

understand • define

analytics

• The 11 labels in the existing main menu account for only 2.14% of all Pageviews in one year, according to Google Analytics.
  By IA rules, the labels in the top level of your main menu should account for the largest percentage of Pageviews - the things your users visit most often.
• If we include the number of Pageviews for all webpages available under these top level labels it is still only 23.39% of all Pageviews.
• My findings revealed that 12 top level content groups, and the webpages available under them, account for 99.23% of all Pageviews. I combined the other 0.77% into a group called Other, for 13 total groups.
  
• One content group, statutes/rules, accounts for 66.33% of all Pageviews, and is not in the main menu on the homepage. It should be there.

stakeholder interview

• office politics
  • The different internal offices of the LSO cannot seem to agree on the labels in the main menu, and this inability has caused the menu to have:
    • too many links
    • 11 labels sorted alphabetically, as opposed to ordering by importance/usage
    • a second, different main menu on all webpages except for the homepage
• types of users
  • Most websites cater to a specific target audience. For example, an online store that sells expensive jewelry markets to a person who can afford their product. Government websites, unfortunately, cater to a wider audience. The types of users for this website include every person who lives in the State of Idaho. It is difficult to make a website easy for every person to use, and it seems that in this case the squeaky wheel gets the attention for this website, and that usually means the employees in the LSO are catered to more than other users.
• typical user tasks
  • There are many different reasons for people to access the website, but some of the top reasons, according to LSO, are to lookup information related to bills, including sponsors and voting records.
• aspirations
  • There are 49 other websites for state legislatures. Not all states run their legislature in the same manner as Idaho, but a few were mentioned in terms of having desirable qualities, worthy of imitation. Those states included Washington, Utah, Oregon, and Alaska.
• hidden information
  • The employees in the LSO Information Center have reported that a lot of people call to ask for assistance with finding things on the website. One of the most requested items are the legislators’ voting records.

usability test

• I recreated the existing main menu in Treejack , a tool to validate information architecture. Participants are asked to complete simple tasks using only the labels from the menu. I also included an System Usability Scale (SUS) survey after the particpants completed the Treejack portion.
  • The overall success rate of task completion was a low 54% for all participants.
  • The overall SUS score was 54, which equates to a letter grade of F and is in the Not Acceptable range
    I do recognize that both results are a "54", so I did double check my work/math in case of a mistake - all good.
  • Quote from a participant:

    There were way too many sections/areas to go to, and then I felt lost. It feels like the website is designed for experts of legislative functions or experienced government employees. The website is not for a normal/average citizen.

competitive research

• The average number of labels in the main menus of the 50 state legislature websites is 7.5, with a low of 4 (Georgia, Missouri, New Hampshire, Wisconsin) and a high of 16 (Nebraska).
• These are the top 7 categories shared by the highest percentage of state legislature websites:
  • Committees, used by 34 states (68%)
  • Bills, used by 33 states (66%)
  • Laws/Statutes, used by 31 states (62%)
  • Senate, used by 26 states (52%)
  • House, used by 23 states (46%)
  • Offices, used by 22 states (44%)
  • Legislators, used by 21 states (42%)
• Of the 11 labels in the main menu of this website, only 2 match the top 7 labels above: Committees and Offices (Legislative Services).

explore • ideate

open card sort

• The findings from the open card sort highlight the terminology issues with the content on this website. The participants struggled with connecting the content into groups. One participant stated:

  Sorry guys, I guess I don’t have enough knowledge on this topic to complete the card sort. So, I am quitting, Sorry again :/

• A few of the top groups created and labeled by the participants are as follows:
  • State Capitol
  • Watch & Listen
  • Offices
  • Legislators
  • Bills
  • Laws
  • Contact

sitemap

• The main menu of a website is the high-level overview of all the information available within that website. If a user arrives at the homepage, or any webpage, of a website, the main menu should help the user know where they are and what is available. It stands to reason that a high percentage of website content should therefore be accessible via that main menu.
• Based on all of my findings, my first attempt at a sitemap, a redesiged main menu for this website, included these 8 items:
  • Laws
  • Bills
  • Legislators
  • Committees
  • Senate
  • House
  • Legislative Offices
  • State Capitol
• This next part was very informal but highly informative. I ran a pilot test of my usability test with the above sitemap. The participant, while working on one of the tasks, shared this out loud:

  I am not smart enough to know the difference between a Bill and a Law, so, I’m going to click on this one [Laws].

• I had previously taken a mental note from the competitive research results, that a number of other state legislatures had combined these two labels (Bills and Laws) into one. So, I adjusted my sitemap as follows:
  • Bills & Laws
  • Legislators
  • Committees
  • Senate
  • House
  • Legislative Offices
  • State Capitol

explore • test

usability test

• For a second time, I created a Treejack study; however, this time, I used the 7 labels from my redesigned sitemap.
• The overall success rate of task completion was a high 93% for all participants, compared to 54% for the existing main menu.
• The overall SUS score was 81, which equates to a letter grade of B and is in the Acceptable range, compared to 54, and a letter grade of F, for the existing main menu.

explore • prototype

• The next step in this design process was to build a functional prototype. The usability test went well, with no need for modifications to the sitemap, at this time, so I built the prototype with the redesigned sitemap from the previous method. The prototype is a semi-functional webpage with a simple image and a main menu. The links do not function currently.
• Please refer to the after picture above, and the view prototype button to see the prototype.

discussion

In this project I aimed to improve the usability of the Idaho State Legislature website by analyzing and proposing design changes to the main menu.

• The backend information architecture of the website is in great shape; however, I do recommend that the statutesrules group be split in two, separating the actual statutes from the rules so that a stronger link can be built between the statutes (laws) and the bills. Following this reasoning, I also recommend extracting the bills from the sessioninfo group to facilitate the linking of statutes and bills.
• My user interviews and usability test of the existing main menu did highlight usability issues and indicated a redesign could be beneficial. I recommend making the main menu consistent across all webpages and placing important content that doesn’t belong in the main menu into other navigational areas such as submenus or footer menus.
• My analysis of the analytics, the competitive research, and the open card sort informed a redesign of the main menu. I recommend decreasing the number of top-level main menu labels from 11 down to a maximum of 8. A usability test of the redesigned main menu showed marked improvement in the subjective usability; therefore, I recommend the following 7 labels for the top-level of the main menu: Bills & Laws, Legislators, Committees, Senate, House, Legislative Offices, and State Capitol.
• The recommendation for these 7 labels comes with the caveat that these content groups do not become data silos. The content of this website is intertwined, and different users given the same task will look for the data using different main menu labels. For example, if a user is looking for the voting records of legislators on certain bills, the user could start with either the Bills & Laws option, or the Legislators option, while other users may not fully understand the concept of a “bill” or a “legislator” and may access the Legislative Offices or State Capitol labels to find assistance. This poly-hierarchical content needs to be accessible via a multitude of avenues.

conclusion

• The Idaho State Legislature website has an astoundingly diverse and populous target audience, it includes every constituent of the State of Idaho, including employees who work for the State, as well as other people from around the United States. The main menu needs to be easy to use for novice users, such as the average citizen of the State of Idaho, but still give expert users, such as LSO employees, quick access to the content they use daily.
• The scope of this project was minimized due to the limited access to key people for the project, while the legislature was in session. Thus, this project took a narrow peek into the one-sided view of the constituent user. Through various methods I learned about the existing IA of the website and its corresponding main menu, I evaluated the subjective usability of that main menu, I then redesigned it and evaluated the subjective usability of the redesign. The redesign improved the subjective usability of the main menu from a below-average System Usability Scale (SUS) score of 54 to an above-average score of 81.
• The positive results from this project should not be used in isolation. The scope and timeframe of the project limited access to people and resources important to the process, and these results should be combined with further research.

reflection

• Looking back, I wish that I had asked for basic demographic information in the Treejack usability tests.
• Internal LSO employee users are very different from a regular citizen of Idaho, it would be beneficial to create personsas and user journeys for these types of users.
• I really enjoyed this project! I hope that I can work on more information architecture projects in the future.
• I continue to be pleasantly, and sometimes shockingly, surprised by the nuggets of information that users share when you take the time to listen and observe them.