Users will have the opportunity to skip steps but it will result in a limited product experience
The time has come to study Information Architecture (IA)! As this is a weighty topic, I will split this blog post into the Doing and the Reflecting. Please continue reading for the ‘Doing’ post.
Onboarding
Goal of UX prototype: To facilitate IRL friendships amongst queer immigrants while prioritising safety and personal accountability.
Barriers to adoption and user success: From my user interviews, many people assume that the online standard is that people lie. Especially in online social profiles where people want to appear the best they can be. Lying erodes trust and could prevent users from signing up and from trusting other users if they do.
How can I elevate and personalise the experience?: I will elevate the experience of this product by making safety a key feature from the start. Unlike other social apps, verification is easy to abuse. With this product, I will make it an essential part of the sign-up process where each new user will learn what the verified symbol means. It doesn’t come just from a phone number, and it doesn’t come from paying a fee; it comes from being a real person. The product experience will be further personalised by discovering local people and interest groups. The product will help users connect by offering conversation suggestions, reminders for when messages go unanswered, and inactive account banners so no one is left hanging.
To do this, I will utilise primarily a doing-oriented onboarding process (Shad 2023). The onboarding flow will simultaneously verify users are real people and help them establish the basics for their user profile. New users cannot engage with other users without a profile and will only see limited content. Therefore, creating an account is a non-optional condition for using the product. Users will first read the product motto because the onboarding process will be slightly longer than average. The user will learn about the product’s values and upcoming steps on the motto screen. Therefore, onboarding will teach 1) the product’s benefits, 2) filling out key profile details, and 3) verifying users.
Navigation
Global: At the current stage, global navigation will be left justified. It will contain links to groups, direct messaging, editing your profile and advice for meeting up.
Local: As there will be no further subcategories, there will be no local navigation.
Inline: Inline navigation will be used if a user wants to link to a group in their post.
Contextual: As the depth of pages will be quite shallow, contextual navigation will be limited to a back arrow to go from post/profile/group back to the relevant feed.
Faceted: Within each main feed (post/profile/group), filter and sort options will be available.
Supplemental: In the footer, users will find additional help articles regarding safety when meeting up and moving to a new home and detailed information on the products’ focus on safety and accountability.
Search: A search box will allow users to search for specific usernames and topics.
Card Sorting
I started by making a simple list of content in Notion:
When I saw how easy it was to do a small card sort online, I jumped onto OptimalSort and made my own (Optimal Workshop 2024)!
Nine people participated in the digital card sort, however four abandoned the task before completion
Data is starting to trickle in, but I’m hoping for more responses before I nail things down. Interestingly, one of the participants sorted the categories identically to me, apart from one card. So far, the consensus is quite similar to how I had initially laid it out. There are a few exceptions, however. Participants were split on the ‘Accountability’ content, which I think is due to confusion about what accountability means in this context. 60% of participants felt ‘Create a post’ should go under the blog section. However, users will not be able to write blog posts but rather a post for the product feed.
References
OPTIMAL WORKSHOP. 2024. ‘User Experience (UX) Research Platform’. Optimal Workshop [online]. Available at: https://www.optimalworkshop.com/ [accessed 29 Feb 2024].
SHAD, Aazar Ali. 2023. ‘The Only Onboarding UX Resource You’ll Need In 2023 [Guide]’. User Pilot [online]. Available at: https://userpilot.com/blog/onboarding-ux/ [accessed 29 Feb 2024].
German vocabulary of the week
Doing – Machen