Talent is cheaper than table salt. What separates the talented individual from the successful one is a lot of hard work.
- Stephen King
I need a break. I have had the most stressful week at work, coupled with the anxiety of needing to do University work. I feel exhausted. I am trying to stay positive because I am lucky, I get to do everything I do at uni in a professional environment in the real world. I feel like I am living and breathing UX at the moment, if I am not doing UX I’m thinking about it! I need to turn my brain off for a while.
- Take some down time
- Remember even if I am not being productive, I need to rest to make sure I can be productive later.
- Talk! do not hide it if I am struggling - I always just keep going and work constantly!
What is onboarding?
Onboarding is a human resources term, borrowed by UX designers as a way of making the first-time users start using a product. A well-designed onboarding experience increases the likelihood that first-time users become full-time users after adopting your product. It is the process users go through when they start the journey as a user of your product and it describes the process of helping a new user sign up or get started and stay engaged with your product its a chance to inform about use and benefits, educate about features, get details and sign up it is also so they can personalise the experience and for them to get excited about the product
Purpose
The purpose is to retain users and reduce churn, retaining users means more profit! 1% difference in churn can have a 12 % impact on company valuation in 5 years. People care more about outcomes than features so how it will help them meet goals and needs?
How to design it?
- How long should it be? 1-5 screens, stay focused on why it meets needs and goals.
- What story should it tell? benefit oriented what user gets out of the product, function what can i do and how do I use it of it and doing/progressive onboarding, prompting and teaching them to do something on the interface as you go through the onboarding process.
- When should you prompt to sign up? allow people to explore the product before they sign up, its much better to help users understand the value before asking them for their information
Don’t just stop at the end of onboarding screens what is the first screen users will see after onboarding?
- Empty state
- First time use
- User cleared
- Error state
Less is more – decision fatigue, evaluating all of the features increases cognitive load and makes it difficult to understand what to do next. People act impulsively and recklessly or they do nothing when they have decision fatigue which means they would quit. Make sure the experience solves a real need. Don’t overwhelm new customers when you onboard them, don’t show them everything the second they sign up.
Onboarding flow is never done, revisit it frequently. Where do customers fall off? Where are pain points? Where does it take longer? Iterate and keep working to help users find value.
What is navigation?
Navigation menus are one of the most-viewed and clicked-on pieces of interface. The thing that makes navigation difficult to work with in digital design is its versatility. Navigation can be simple or complex: a few main pages or a multi-level architecture; one set of content for logged-in users and another for logged-out users; and so on. Because navigation can vary so much between websites, there are no set guidelines or how-tos for organising navigation – but there are some best practices we can use to guide us on our way.
The organisation search and navigation systems to find what they need and understand what they have found, navigation and information architecture are connected and navigation makes IA tangible what we learn from IA we apply to our navigation. It is always there but shouldn’t be intrusive.
Navigation systems help orientate and way find. It is commonly thought of as menus, links within pages, breadcrumbs, related links, pagination and any other links that allow users to move from one page to another are included in navigation.
Types of navigation
- Global navigation – it is everywhere, always in the same place with the same items and in the same style, it will always be there tying all the pages together to create consistency. Primary navigation.
- Local navigation – used to access lower levels in structure, below the global or primary navigation pages, secondary or tertiary navigation. Presented after a global navigation has been selected. Navigation nested within navigation.
- Inline navigation – appears inside blocks of text to direct users to related resource, can be problematic due to page scanning, can be easily missed so UI needs to be considered to call them out.
- Contextual navigation – adapts to the users current location or browsing history, suggested content links, contextual and related to content on current page. “You may also like is an example” breadcrumbs or back links are another common example.
- Facited navigation – navigating by attributes or facets of the content, price, brand, author etc. Filter and Sort.
- Suplemental navigation – useful for locating obscure content for users who are struggling to find what they want. Often found in the footer, useful for users who are low priority but need to be accomodated, looking for obscure content or having difficulty finding what they want – navigation of last resort
- Search – way finding can get too complex to be managed exclusively through higherarchical navigation, dont make search just to have it, autofill, autocorrect are both useful, filter and sort options and help users choose most useful search results, if there are no results show clear friendly message and alternatives.
Good navigation
Comprehensive and concise, straightforward, persistent but unobtrusive instinctual and indicative of the user’s location. Keep navigation high level. What is not there is just as important as what is there. Organising and prioritising for the user based on their goals, what they want to do along each step of their journey. If you cant leave it out deprioritise in a clear way. User should be able to assess what the navigation leads to. Don’t assume users are clever and don’t assume you are either. Be wary of providing too many choices. Dont get too creative, obvious is best and familiar convensions. Mapping it outIdeate on how content can be structured based on research insights
Sitemapping
This can mean two things, it can be a deliverable for users consumption, it can be a deliverable for the development team for how to build the databases that power the app or website. Needs to covey information about product structure. It provides an overview of product structure and site areas in a single glance, conveys overall structure of website, navigation, how data is connected and the relationship between pages. Gives clear direction to project managers, clients, designers, content writers they are wireframes for content.
What is IA?
“The organization, search, and navigation systems that help people to complete tasks, find what they need, and understand what they’ve found.” Peter Morville
The craft and science of organising structureing and labeling information so they can find and use it more easily. Library and information science.
We may not be involved in all of them but these are parts and people will have to deal with these to make our design successful.
- Information seeking behaviour
- Information access, management and retrieval
- Database design and management
This week we look at information architecture (IA), and what that means in terms of digital design. Many definitions exist for IA, but a general one I found to be the best is the organisation of functionality and content into a structure that enables intuitive navigation:
“Information architects are inveterate systems thinkers. In the Web’s early days, we were the folks who focused less on pages than on the relationships between pages. Today, we continue to design organization, navigation, and search systems as integral parts of the whole. Of course, the context of our practice has shifted. Increasingly, we must design for experiences across channels. Mobile and social are just the beginning. Our future-friendly, cross-channel information architectures need to address the full spectrum of platforms, devices, and media.” – Peter Morville (he literally wrote the book on IA).
Similar to building architects using a blueprint to construct every part of a house – from physical structures to more complex inner workings like electrical and plumbing – information architecture describes the hierarchy, navigation, features and interactions of a website or application. And just as blueprints are the most valuable document for an architect to use in the construction of a building, information architecture can be a powerful tool in a designer’s arsenal. Information architecture is (like a blueprint) a visual representation of the product’s infrastructure, features and hierarchy. The level of detail is dependent on the product, so IA may include navigation, application functions and behaviours, content and flows. There is no set limit to the size or shape of IA; nevertheless, it should encompass the generalised structure of the product so anyone (theoretically) should be able to read it and understand how the product works.
Resources: Richard Saul Wurman, Peter Morville
Complex virtual spaces need to be planned just as much as physical spaces like supermarkets
Users need to understand where they are, what they have found what to expect and what else isa round them
Why is it important?
its the way we choose to arrange the parts of something to make it understandable as a whole. People naturally organise things differently so we need to be on the same page as our users, it makes sites more usable by informing interface design and navigation, users have questions and content provides the answers quickly and consciesly. it helps us plan for scale as we add more content and functionality. It helps with database design too, the database must tag the content accordingly
Organising things so it doesn’t overwhelm and matches users needs and expectations. It should allow users to make sense of the digital world you are putting them in it makes users feel secure and confident.
Information architecture strategy
Identifies the drivers and processes for bringing it to life connecting people to the content they are looking for. If the IA is good it has its own set of heuristics by abby covert
- Findable
- Accessable
- Clear
- Communicative
- Useful
- Credible
- Controlable
- Valuable
- Learnable
- Delightful
Components of IA
Consists of 3 main components:
Ontology – the meaning of words understanding what terms are used to represent subject matter. Good user experience is built on a foundation of shared meaning
Taxonomy – how the information is grouped classified and labeled how terms relate and fit together
Coreography – rules of how meaning and structure come together understanding how the above work together to create a flow
How do our users use and what do they mean, good ux shares that understanding our use of language has a certain meaning to us, but may have different meaning to users.
How to order
Organisation structures:
- Exact structures – alphabetical, chronological, geographical
- Ambiguous structures – topic, task, audience, metaphor
Card sorting
To gather important topics and group them by similarity into catagories, helping to understand users mental model. Ideation phase looking at meaning, structure and coreography evaluate proposed site structures and labels.
How to
- Label cards asking participants to arrange them
- Keep numbers between 30-100
- Find the right level of detail
- Make them sortable
- Content should be of similar granularity
- Observe the sort and ask about rational
- Analyse similarities and differences
- Share recomendations
Variability in mental models is high so we need more data up to 15 participant responses to look for patterns. Dont have too many top level catagories, too many levels, using jargon, navigational structure shouldnt mimic internal org structure, conways lore ( larger orgs)
- Open card sort – generate ideas for labels and groupings or classifications of a new or existing product – generative research
- Closed card sort – evaluating or existing or proposed structures – evaluative
- Hybrid – ask to create diff catagories if it doesnt make sense
The journey into self-love and self-acceptance must begin with self-examination… until you take the journey of self-reflection, it is almost impossible to grow or learn in life.
- Iyanla Vanzant
My understanding of designing successful onboarding, information architecture, and designing navigation this week has improved a lot, again it is aligning with what I am doing at work. Designing successful onboarding involves creating a seamless user experience that guides users through the application or product. Information architecture is the process of organising and structuring content to ensure easy access to information. Designing navigation is the process of creating a clear and effective navigation system to help users find what they are looking for.
The challenges and obstacles I faced this week was around navigation, I suggested a certain navigation structure and faced a lot of pushback on it due to disagreement around primary and secondary navigation. The current navigation I am working on is nonsensical and cluttered with no structured higherarchy. I decided to conduct some research to better understand the issues and from this I discovered it was just a few stakeholders that didn’t understand why it needed to change at all “its how its always been”. To combat this I sat with the lead engineer and we mapped out the navigation I worked through it with them and explained the user research thoroughly, and mapped it out in an interactive way. I also recognised that I needed to improve my communication skills around my reasoning for creating effective information architecture.
I have examined content organisation, and navigation design. There is so much more more to learn, especially in areas such as accessibility and information architecture.
By examining my practice and understanding I have identified my strengths and weaknesses in each area through self-criticism and reflections, having gained a deeper understanding of designing successful onboarding, information architecture, and designing navigation.
I plan to continue my learning journey by reading, attending workshops and conferences, and engaging with design communities to learn from their experiences. I also plan to improve my user research, usability testing, and accessibility skills to enhance my practice further. By continually reflecting on my practice and seeking feedback.
I also plan to focus on improving my skills in user research, usability testing, and accessibility. I will explore additional academic literature and case studies related to these areas and seek out opportunities to apply what I learn in real-world design projects. I will also continue to collaborate with peers and seek out feedback from users to refine my skills and improve my design outcomes. Overall, I am committed to continuing to evolve as a designer and create meaningful and effective user experiences. By continually seeking out opportunities to learn and grow.
[~40 minutes]
- Think about the goal(s) of your UX prototype, the barriers to adoption and user success, and the ways you can elevate and personalise the experience.
- Identify the type of the onboarding story you will use.
- State the objectives of the onboarding experience.
- Draft a flow to support it.
- Identify if you need users to sign up/in, and where in the flow you will ask them to do so.
To create a platform that empowers and inspires women to give back to their communities through charitable donations, volunteer work, and educational resources, ultimately fostering a culture of generosity and compassion. Barriers may include. People may not know about the app or its purpose, so may not be inclined to use it.
Users may not trust the app with their personal information or donations, which could prevent them from using it. If the app is too complicated to use, users may get frustrated and give up on using it. Users may be concerned about the security of the app, especially if it involves handling financial transactions. If the app is not available in certain regions or languages, it may limit its adoption. If the app has a cost associated with it, users may be hesitant to pay for it, especially if there are other free alternatives available.
Technical issues such as bugs, crashes, or slow performance may frustrate users and prevent them from using the app so making sure the technologies used are reliable is important. Users may not have a strong incentive to use the app if there are no clear benefits or rewards for doing so. User success in this app can be defined as users being able to make a positive impact on the causes they care about by making donations, volunteering, or spreading awareness through sharing content on social media. Additionally, user success can be measured by the ease of use of the app, the ability to find relevant and trustworthy information on charities and causes, and the sense of community and connection that users feel by being a part of a platform that is focused on giving back.
Elevating and personalising:
Customised User Profiles: Allowing users to create personalised profiles with their photo, name, and a brief bio. Users can also choose which causes they are passionate about and receive customised content and updates.
Personalised Recommendations: Use machine learning algorithms to recommend charities and causes that are most relevant to the user’s interests, donation history, and browsing activity.
Real-Time Tracking and Feedback: Give users real-time feedback on how their donations are making an impact. This can include updates on how their money is being used, stories about the people or communities that they are helping, and visualizations that show the progress made towards a specific goal.
Gamification: Create a gamified experience by rewarding users with badges, achievements, and other virtual rewards for their donations, volunteering, and social media shares. This can help encourage users to keep coming back to the platform and increase engagement.
Community Building: Foster a sense of community by creating forums, discussion boards, and other interactive features that allow users to connect with each other, share their experiences, and provide support to one another.
Personalised Communication: Use personalised communication tactics like email newsletters, chatbots, and push notifications to keep users engaged and informed about new charities and causes that match their interests.
Social Media Integration: Allow users to share their charitable giving activity on social media platforms like Facebook and Twitter, which can help raise awareness for the charities and causes they support and encourage others to donate as well.
Charity Events: Organise charity events like walks, runs, or auctions to encourage user participation and support for different causes. This can help create a sense of community and encourage users to make a difference in a fun and engaging way.
I am thinking I could create an onboarding story that shows how the app can help people discover local charities and volunteer opportunities. Using graphics, animations, and interactive elements to help users understand how to navigate the app and find what they’re looking for with testimonials from people who have used the app and benefited from it, might help build trust and credibility with new users.
Tailoring the needs and preferences makes it easy for people to get started with the app and understand how it can help them achieve their goals.
Goals for the journey
- To introduce the user to the purpose and value of the product.
- To help the user understand how to navigate and use the product effectively.
- To create a positive and engaging first impression of the product.
- To encourage the user to complete their profile and provide necessary information.
- To incentivise the user to engage with the product regularly.
- To reduce any confusion or frustration the user may experience while using the product.
- To build trust and credibility with the user by providing a seamless and intuitive onboarding experience.
[~20 minutes]
Think about which kinds of navigation design are appropriate for your prototype assignment. Provide a suggestion for each:
- Global
- Local
- Inline
- Contextual
- Faceted
- Supplemental
If one type of navigation design is not appropriate, try and explain why.
In my opinion, a combination of Global, Local, and Contextual navigation would be the most suitable for an app like this. Here are the reasons for each:
Global Navigation: Global navigation refers to the menu or navigation bar that is present on every screen of the app. It allows users to move to different sections or features of the app from anywhere within the app. Global navigation would be useful in this app as it will help users quickly access different sections of the app without having to navigate back to the home screen.
Local Navigation: Local navigation refers to the menu or navigation bar that is specific to a particular section or feature of the app. It allows users to access specific information or functions related to that section of the app. For example, if the app has a section for donation history, local navigation would allow users to view specific details related to their donation history. Local navigation would be useful in this app as it will help users easily access specific information related to the feature they are using.
Contextual Navigation: Contextual navigation refers to navigation that is specific to the context or task at hand. It allows users to move forward or backward in a process or task. For example, if the app has a donation process, contextual navigation would allow users to move forward or backward in the donation process. Contextual navigation would be useful in this app as it will help users easily navigate through different steps or processes within the app.
In summary, the combination of Global, Local, and Contextual navigation would provide users with easy access to different sections of the app, specific information related to the feature they are using, and the ability to navigate through different steps or processes within the app.
Local Navigation: This type of navigation is typically used for navigating within a specific section of an app or website. As the goal of the charity app is to provide a global platform for giving, using local navigation may limit the user’s ability to explore different causes and charities from around the world.
Inline Navigation: Inline navigation is useful when users need to navigate through a series of related pages or steps. However, for an app that is focused on charitable giving, users may not want to go through a long series of steps to complete a donation.
Contextual Navigation: Contextual navigation is typically used to provide links to related content within the same section of an app or website. While this type of navigation can be useful for providing additional information about a specific charity or cause, it may not be the best option for users who want to explore different causes and charities from around the world.
Faceted Navigation: Faceted navigation is a type of filtering that allows users to narrow down search results by selecting different criteria. While this can be useful for users who want to find charities that meet specific criteria, it may not be the best option for users who want to explore different causes and charities from around the world.
Supplemental Navigation: Supplemental navigation includes links to less important or secondary content within an app or website. While this can be useful for providing additional information about a specific charity or cause, it may not be the best option for users who want to explore different causes and charities from around the world.
Overall, a global navigation approach would be the most appropriate for a charity app, as it allows users to easily explore different causes and charities from around the world.
[~60 – 90 minutes]
- Consider the navigation you decided on for your product.
- Make a list of all the content you intend to have in your product.
- Make sure the content is of similar granularity – ie could any be considered category labels (eg fruit / vegetables / pulses), whereas others are simply content items (eg bananas / carrots / chickpeas)?
- Take all the content items, and conduct a card sort – either use physical cards, or a tool like OptimalSortLinks to an external site.*.
- Synthesise your results – there are lots of helpful articles on how to do this on the OptimalSort website.
- Educational articles and videos about various causes and charities.
- Success stories of people who have made a difference through charitable actions testimonials etc.
- Profiles of different charities and their missions.
- Personalised recommendations for charities based on user interests and values.
- Impact reports showcasing the results of charitable donations.
- A newsfeed of current events related to various causes.
- Information on how to volunteer and get involved in local charity efforts.
- Community forum for users to connect and discuss charitable topics.
- Resource guides for individuals and organisations interested in starting their own charitable initiatives.
- Interactive quizzes and games to educate and engage users on charitable topics.
- Inspirational quotes and stories related to philanthropy and giving back.
- Live webinars and Q&A sessions with experts in various charitable fields.
- Fundraising and donation options for users to contribute to various causes.
- Progress trackers and personalised dashboards for users to track their own charitable impact.
- Partner opportunities for businesses interested in supporting charitable causes.
- Future additions could include, blockchain info and VR info
-
Success Stories: Share stories of people or organizations that have benefited from the platform’s charitable initiatives.
-
Impact Reports: Provide regular reports that showcase the impact of the platform’s charitable activities.
-
Volunteer Opportunities: Highlight volunteering opportunities that users can take part in.
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Social Sharing: Encourage users to share their charitable contributions on social media and provide them with easy-to-use tools for doing so.
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Educational Resources: Offer resources that educate users about the causes they’re supporting and the impact of their contributions.
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Fundraising Tools: Enable users to fundraise for their favorite causes and charities through the app.
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Donation Matching: Allow companies or individuals to match the donations made by users to specific charities.
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Events: Host events that bring users together to support specific causes or initiatives.
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In-App Messaging: Provide a messaging system that allows users to communicate with each other and share information about causes they’re passionate about.
-
Rewards: Offer rewards or incentives to users who make charitable contributions or volunteer their time.
- Home
- Profile/Account
- Donation History
- Discover Charities
- News and Updates
- Educational Resources
- Virtual Reality Experience
- Blockchain Transparency
- Settings
- Help/FAQ
- Logout
- Intercom (2016) ‘Onboarding Never Stops’ [online], Medium, 19 September. Available at: https://medium.com/intercom-inside/onboarding-never-stops-a9ccfd782ffdLinks to an external site. [Accessed 12 March 2023]
- Abbey Covert (2016) How does IA relate to User Experience? [online video]. Available at: https://aycl.uie.com/virtual_seminars/watch_intro/139/6Links to an external site. [Accessed 12 March 2023]
- Barry Schwartz (2005) The Paradox of Choice [online video]. Available at: http://www.ted.com/talks/barry_schwartz_on_the_paradox_of_choiceLinks to an external site. [Accessed 12 March 2023]
- Sheena Iyengar (2010) The Art of Choosing [online video]. Available at: https://www.ted.com/talks/sheena_iyengar_the_art_of_choosing?language=enLinks to an external site. [Accessed 12 March 2023]
- Harvey, K. (2017) ‘13 Tips To Improve User Onboarding From SaaS Leaders’ [online], Chargify, 3 March. Available at: chargify.com/blog/13-tips-to-improve-user-onboarding-from-saas-leaders/Links to an external site. [Accessed 12 March 2023]
- Byrne, P. (2019) ‘The complete guide to onboarding customers for long-term success’ [online], Intercom. Available at: https://www.intercom.com/blog/onboarding-guide/Links to an external site. [Accessed 12 March 2023]
- Justinmind (2017) ‘5 UI Patterns: Navigation That Makes Good UX Sense’ [online], UX Planet, 9 August. Available at: https://uxplanet.org/5-ui-patterns-navigation-that-makes-good-ux-sense-92a65df7485dLinks to an external site. [Accessed 13 March 2023]
- Goodwin, J. (2016) ‘UX Series: The basic principles for designing search & results’ [online], Deeson, 29 February. Available at: https://www.deeson.co.uk/blog/ux-series-basic-principles-designing-search-resultsLinks to an external site. [Accessed 12 March 2023]
- Budiu, R. (2015) ‘Basic Patterns for Mobile Navigation: A Primer’ [online], Nielsen Norman Group, 15 November. Available at: https://www.nngroup.com/articles/mobile-navigation-patterns/Links to an external site. [Accessed 13 March 2023]
- Whitenton, K. (2013) ‘Flat vs. Deep Website Hierarchies’ [online], Nielsen Norman Group, 10 November. Available at: https://www.nngroup.com/articles/flat-vs-deep-hierarchy/Links to an external site. [Accessed 12 March 2023]
The Design thinking playbook
Lewrick, M., Link, P. and Leifer, L., 2018. The design thinking playbook. Hoboken, New Jersey: John Wiley & Sons, Inc.