Project Tag: IA

Overview

Objective:  Design user experience led Information Architecture that impacts on the concept design phase for LUCRF SUPER website redesign
‍My role:  It was mostly autonomous work that I was in charge of Information Architecture.
– Worked with the lead designer for the Design Principles
– Gave feedback on the visual design.
Team members : lead experience designer
Stakeholders:
LUCRF Super – project manager, digital marketing specialist, executive manager, marketing & retention manager
Our Very Own – Product owner
Luminary – product owners, strategy director, client engagement director, executive manager
Time spent: 33 days over 8 weeks

Problems

Overall Information Architecture (IA) problems I found are:

• Too many levels (site map) and pages when some content should be on the same page
• Content categorisation appears overwhelming, with no clear hierarchy
• Duplicated content and sub-menu in different categories
• The content of 1st level pages doesn’t have the crucial information but somewhat generic
• Using high literacy words and technical words with acronyms
• Inconsistencies in labels, language and long titles
• Business-focused content (not user-centred)

The Outcomes

The simple and organised website that caters the end-users needs according to their life moments and their Jobs To Be Done.

Process

1. Initiative (not covered in this showcase)
2. De-brief (not covered in this showcase)
3. Planning (not covered in this showcase)
4. Understanding from secondary research & the discovery phase research
5. Content Audit
6. Competitor Review
7. Card Sorting
8. Analysis
9. Draft Information Architecture
10. Design TreeJack Testing
11. Analysis
12. Presentation to stakeholders and the client
13. Final site structure & content design
14. Design principles (not covered in this showcase)

Understanding Secondary research and the discovery phase

I reviewed all the quantitive marketing research to understand the financial industry and where LUCRF Super is positioned.
LUCRF Super is the first insurance company in Australia. Their main target customers are labourers and the working class. The main channel to market themself is company/organisation-based offline consultant, training and events. LUCRF Super highly values the personalised and responsive service their advisors (BDMs) offer. It is a core reason for staying with LUCRF.

Key findings of LUCRF Super member survey

• Fees and investment return are the most important factors in choosing a super fund
• Insurance is the lowest priority
• Access to advice and customer service is the highest priority for aged members, and neither confident nor knowledgeable segments

LUCRF Super website review

There are problems on navigation, accessibility, form usability and page layout to be addressed. This review is one of the foundations for design principles later on.

Navigation

• Slow for the drop-down menu to appear
• Information is overwhelming and scattered, potential dead-ends with unclear calls to action
• Leads user to a land page with no navigation

Accessibility

• Crucial, prominent elements are using in-accessible colour combinations. Elements that don’t meet WCAG minimum standards
• On-page text elements rendered as images

Form usability

• Forms don’t comply with standards & lack user support and feedback
• They encourage contact by phone to supporters while they don’t have enough capacities
• Phone fields should only accept numerals. Opt-in checkbox or removed as it’s a distraction (route away from signup)

Page layout

• Pages tend to look homogeneous, with little to differentiate them from one another
• The content runs too long without a clear page definition (text longer than the ideal length, 50-60 characters, can be difficult to read). Space is wasted by using incompatible layouts
• Irrelevant content and images are unnecessary

Mobile screen layout

• Viewed on a mobile device, the hierarchy of elements is wrong. For example, the Header bar using the stacked logo is as deep as the main content area
• The footer is long and uses a confusing hierarchy/layout. The scale of content tiles elevates their importance while they appear to be secondary calls-to-action

Personas

The audience Personas from the initiative are Legacy Builders and Working Class. Persona stories have been profiled based on a spectrum of engagement with finances, age and background.
They bring to life the key themes and insights from the member research and add context to LUCRFs two target audience personas. I kept them in the loop of designing IA, focused on users needs and tasks.

Click to refer all other 4 personas

Content Audit

“You can’t know where you’re going if you don’t know where you are.” The reason I think it is necessary for the project is to access needs, shape content governance and helps determine the feasibility of IA.
I looked over the level of pages, page titles, URLs, main category, headings and content, description, content inventory-added comments for any problems, errors and opportunity areas. The results of this content audit are the Problems of IA above.
Click to refer to the content audit on Spreadsheet

What Others Do – Competitor IA Review

I compared the Information Architecture of 4 competitor sites:

Australian Super, HESTA, CareSuper, SunSuper

Key findings are:

• Primary labels used: ‘Superannuation’ vs ‘Super’
• Action-orientated labels vs product-specific labels
• Consistency use for main first level menu labels: ‘Superannuation’, ‘Investments’, Insurance’, Retirement’, ‘Employers’
• Never use abbreviations, always use the full name
• Different use of: ‘Advice’, ‘Tools & Resources’, ‘Learn’
• About us located in Global or on Footer

Card Sorting

Internal team and stakeholder’s Open Card Sorting

Parallel to competitor research, I conducted remote card sorting with internal staff and stakeholders.

Purpose

The purpose of internal card sorting is to first understand the client’s point of view on the classification of the content, second select the appropriate method for external card sorting, and last compare the level of understanding of the content between the business and the end-users.

I carefully chose 60 words from the website to create cards and conducted remote Open Card Sorting using Optimal Workshop CardSort.

Findings

• The standard categories that the participants grouped reflect the ones from competitors (Superannuation, Investments, Insurance, For Employers, Retirement)
• The participants labelled “Why LUCRF Super” and “Compare Us” for cards, “Best financial planning team”, “Insurance offer for new members” and “Get involved in community programs” which is from different menu items on the current website.
• There are various categories created for the cards, “Training staff”, “Your Advice Options”, “Events and seminars”, “Financial Services Guide”, “Step-by-step online learning” and “Calculators”, “Find a financial adviser”. They are Help, Support, Advice, Education.

These findings and competitor IA informed us to develop a draft IA and defined how and what we wanted to test.

Refer the draft IA and competitors review on the Spreadsheet.

The case study continues to LUCRF SUPER Site Redesign-Information Architecture (Part 2).