What does organizing a kitchen teach us about information architecture for our digital products?
After my house was vacated by all the contractors, (after 3–4 months of what seemed like a war-zone), it finally started to look more like home. The thing I was most excited about while moving in was to create a place for everything and put everything in its place.
Call it my occupational hazard — as a UX professional, when I started organising, I couldn’t help relating every drawer I set up, to how we use the same principles in designing our digital products. It struck me, that the explanations of fundamentals of experience design can be done by most common, the most relatable, the easiest and yet the most complex part of the house- THE KITCHEN. If we equate it to any digital property, we can draw clear parallels between the two.
How do we normally arrange our kitchen?
Pulses in one rack, spices in another and all plates tucked in one. The glasses and bowls in another and so on. Typically, depending on the size of the cabinet and amount of stuff that needs to go in it. We actually do the same in our websites and apps as well…isn’t it? About us, contact us, our products, our services etc., in no particular order.
Imagine, if we go the user intent driven architecture, eg. if the intent is ‘serving dinner’, according to our earlier organisation, user would need to open 1 drawer for plates, other for bowls and 3rd for glasses. Deep dive into the scenario, ‘Serving dinner for a party in the house’ — you now probably need to look through a different drawer of each type of serving crockery. Then, the guest would want to help and you would need to give 3 different sets of instructions. (guest in the digital world would mean new user)
The simpler organisation would be to have ‘home dinner sets’ in one drawer/cabinet with plates, bowls, spoons, glasses all coordinated, yet structured in their groups. The same applies to our content. Arranging the relevant and contextual information in one place which naturally maps with the function the user is here to perform, just eases the load on the user and s/he goes a happy person from your site/app. Information when they need it and where they need it, rather than tucking them in our preconceived notion of organisation.
If we were to break it down from the beginning, (as we do in the UX process)first we need to identify who is using the kitchen, the cook, the house-help, cook and you, only you or all family members.
Typically, the kitchen can be divided into 4 clear zones and things we need in that zone,
· Preparation –fridge, chopping board, knives…etc
· Cooking — pulses, gas stove, spices…etc
· Serving — plates, bowls, spoons, easy access to dining table etc.
· Cleaning — dustbin, washing liquid etc…
In a place like Mumbai, where the kitchen starts and ends in 2 steps, how do you layout these 4 zones, you say? (Parallel: if you have way too much content to display on your site)
Well yes, more so in such scenarios. Identifying storage boxes of all sizes to fit contents according to their use like use. Identifying layering of content, drawers within drawers to optimize space as well collect relevant content in one place. Going vertical, identifying places other than the kitchen for zones used outside of the kitchen, what goes below the cabinet what goes overhead. (Parallel: Use of micro-interactions to reveal and hide content. Use of accordions, tabs and cards layouts to club together or segregate content. Use scrolls, tap and go interactions, but let them be clubbed in logical usage matrix)
In a nutshell, it is important for you to think and live the user journey before we design anything, whether it is a physical product or a digital one.
Exhausted with all the shifting…signing off :)
