08. Information Architecture
YMCA Visit Site
Role: User Research • Facilitation • Customer interviews • Wireframes
Toronto, Canada 2015
Community, Leisure
The Challenge
YMCA, GTA (Greater Toronto Area) has a long history of serving the community making their customer base wide and varied.
The challenge was how to make the site navigation work for people from different demographics with needs ranging from fitness classes to immigration services.
Method & Process
I wanted the navigation to reflect the voice of the customer. By conducting user research sessions I could show the client how user input can be used to inform the and validate the overall sitemap.
To do this I used the card sorting method. In each session participants were given a series of index cards labeled with section titles from the existing sitemap, on the reverse was a brief description of what the section contained.
By removing the hierarchy I allowed participants to prioritise and focus on terminology. This helped identify natural language for the site wide navigation.
Learnings
From these sessions the client had a clearer understanding of how their site will be used by the customers and a new method of gathering this data in the future.
Personally I learned how flexible the card sorting method could be. I had used colour coding to indicate the existing categories so it was clear when participants either agreed or disagreed with the structure.
By allowing participants free reign of taxonomy I discovered sections that the client hadn’t thought of leading to the generation of new content and regrouping of categories. This aligned perfectly with the YMCAs goal of being community focused.