User Flows + Information Architecture

Or: how well can you distill your user research into an actionable blueprint for design?

Background: In this mentor-matching project I’m working on, I’ve conducted research, identified my primary user persona, and created my MVP feature list. Before any wireframing begins, there’s an important step that considers the research and ensures the user’s basic needs are supported through the features and function: how the users work their way through. How will they arrive? What decisions will they make, and what actions will they be asked to take? From each decision point, where will they go next?

The Problem
Understand the tasks users will be coming to the app to complete, and work out how the app will ‘flow’ them through those tasks. The solution to this problem should be driven by the digested strategy from my research, turning that strategy into an executable User Flow.

The Process — user flows: enter the happy path
In a User Flow, we map out a hypothetical user’s flow through an application utilizing hierarchies. It’s important to follow the user through their journey from start to finish.

Result:

Optimal user flow, or “happy path” for the user who is already onboarded. Their ultimate goal is to have actionable steps to take after a mentoring session. Here they’re writing notes or creating follow up tasks after a mentoring session and feeling pretty darn good about themselves and the value prop of the app.

Information Architecture

You have a responsibility to your users to organize your content so that their journey through your site is productive. You don’t want to disorient them — or worse yet, irritate them — by blocking them from the goal they are trying to achieve. That right there is a super compelling reason to avoid designing with placeholder content, right? Anyone asking you to temp in some copy on their website should be ashamed. Although, I do have a few favourite sources for that… okay, one more for fun.

The point is: if you don’t know what information you’re communicating, how can you possibly organize it, or make sure you’re building something structurally sound — something that makes sense for real human people to use?

“Information Architecture is a mix of art and science that shapes information to support usability and findability.”

IA example screenshot: the gov.uk site does a beautiful job allowing the user to filter information and utilizes sliding drawers of categories that act as breadcrumbs for navigation along the way. Usability *and* findability.

Hot tip: analyze the organizational schemes your user will see (navigation, labels, search), and the ones they won’t (metadata, back-end). Check into the competitors and industry leaders… in what ways are they similar and where do they diverge? Any controlled vocabulary you can leverage?

Information Architecture should play a large role as you’re working through your user flow. In the above example I could organize my content exactly (alphabetically, chronologically, by location) or subjectively (in categories or hierarchy). I chose a categorical approach for this project. Using categories (and most likely tags) will be the simplest way for users and/or mentors to find a matching pair based on commonalities, must-haves, or areas of interest. More on that in a site map to follow.

Skills: MVP, User Flow, Information Architecture, Information Hierarchies