world ia day, london: ia at gov.uk
TRANSCRIPT
Gaynor Burns and Vicky BuserInformation Architects at GOV.UKGovernment Digital Service@gaynorburns @vickybuser
Information architecture and GOV.UK
“Information architecture (IA) is a design discipline that is focused on making information findable and understandable”
GDSPeter Morville, Louis Rosenfeld & Jorge Arango
… based on user needs
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“The user should not have to navigate the departmental structure of Government before finding the service or content they need”
GDSDirectgov 2010 and beyond: Revolution not evolution
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The challenge
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190,000+ content itemsPublished by 300+ organisations
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Content of different levels of complexity, granularity, tone, target audience
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Different taxonomies have evolvedThey’re not completeNot all content is tagged to them
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Existing tagging is complicated
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Who are our users?
10m visitors per week
All of us - either directly or indirectly will have needs of government
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GDSwww.flickr.com/photos/nomadyc/200334975
GDSwww.gov.uk/guidance/keeping-a-pet-pig-or-micropig
GDSwww.flickr.com/photos/woolgenie/16093952683/
GDSwww.gov.uk/government/collections/early-years-childcare-registering-with-ofsted
GDShttps://www.flickr.com/photos/conred/24752276586
GDSwww.gov.uk/guidance/zika-virus
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We can’t just focus on the most popular needs
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Some users have nowhere else to go
Journeys start from the content
What else is there?Where can I go from here?Is this everything?
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Our approach
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Do the hard work to make it simple
GDSwww.gov.uk/design-principles
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“I didn’t know what to google as I didn’t know what was available”
GDShttps://insidegovuk.blog.gov.uk
Only 6% users use site search*
*That’s still 5m searches a month though!
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Principle 1 = one taxonomy
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Start with needs*
*user needs not government needs
GDSwww.gov.uk/design-principles
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Principle 2 = simple tagging interface
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Principle 3 = simple display rules
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Consistent design patterns for browse at every level
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And consistent page-level orientation
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Solution = taxonomy + tagging + display
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Simple enough to scale Flexible enough to adapt
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Be consistent, not uniform
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We’re learning about our approach by starting to trial it with something small
Our first theme is Education
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Iterate
Then iterate again
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Tips
Importance of content strategy
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Automation and tools can really help…
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Automation and tools can really help…
...but you still need people to do the thinking
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Analytics are hugely helpful…
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Analytics are hugely helpful…
...as long as you know the question you’re asking AND have time to analyse the data
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Communicate and collaborate
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Working in an organisation that values user research is vital
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Where are we now?
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We’re still working through education
That’s about 4% of the total content
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We still have lots of open questions about governance
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“The need for logical user-centric structures and taxonomies has never gone away”
GDShttps://fiveminuteswithergonjon.wordpress.com
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“The user should not have to navigate the departmental structure of Government before finding the service or content they need”
GDSDirectgov 2010 and beyond: Revolution not evolution
Thanks!
Gaynor Burns and Vicky Buser@gaynorburns @vickybuser