Tag Archives: organization

WIAD Dallas event: big success

In case you were wondering where I have been for the early part of 2019, it’s been planning World Information Architecture Day in Dallas. After much hard work, planning and organizing, I can say that WIAD Dallas was a huge hit. I am very pleased with the outcome.

Jennifer Blatz UX Design WIAD Information Architecture Day
Not only did I organize WIAD Dallas, I also acted as the event’s emcee.

Planning and Organizing

Thankfully I did not pull this event together alone. I had a small group of volunteers and a co-organizer that helped me with the logistics. There are a lot of details that go in to organizing an event. And I am proud of myself for taking on such a challenge and surviving to tell the tale.

Lessons learned

I  worked on the planning committee for WIAD in Los Angeles in the past. I forgot how much work and event can be. Along the way this time, I did learn a few valuable lessons about process, organization, teamwork and myself.

Start early. Even though I got a lot of people interested in volunteering months in advance, it pays to get those people active in duties asap.

Share the duties. I took on too much for this event. I needed to delegate more of the responsibilities to the volunteers who where eager to actually pitch in.

Did I say start early? Get sponsorship locked down and payments submitted weeks, if not moths in advance. Secure the venue and give yourself time to check it out and make sure all is ok. Nail down the details of the meals as to not be worried about these details at the final hour.

Give the volunteers specific roles and tasks. If people are not responsible for a specific duty, they will not do it. That is why a lot of the small stuff fell on me to knock out for the event.

Relax. Everything will come together in the end. We got food ordered. We had a venue. We had a lot of RSVPs and a great turnout. Weather was great (last year we got hammered by rain.) And everyone seemed very pleased with the entire event. Well done you!

Jennifer Blatz UX design gets interviewed for ProjectUX podcast.
Jeff Whitfield of the Project UX Podcast interviews me to get my perspective on organizing WIAD.

Accomplishments

  • I survived!
  • I raised about the amount of sponsorship that had been raised the previous years. Last yeah all funds came from on source. This year we had support from over 10 companies, recruiters and community groups.
  • I secured 7 high-profile and reputable speakers that talked about a variety of topics and shared valuable insight. Our fabulous speakers covered several different topics from research, to empathy, to content to Slurpees! Yep Slurpees.
  • We doubled the attendance from the previous year.
  • We had some pretty cool sponsors like 7-Eleven donated breakfast and brought a ton of cool food and drinks.
  • We had fun swag and great raffle prizes to give away like a BigD ticket, plenty of Amazon gift cards and cool UX books.
  • People seemed pleased with the diversity of the speakers’ topics.
  • Overall, attendees were happy with the day.

Whew! So now that I’ve had a little time to recover and play catch up, I am finally sharing my experience with you. Thank you for all who helped me make WIAD a success. It truly does take a village, and I am lucky to have suck a cool UX village of support.

Check out the details of the WIAD Dallas on the website.

Listen to the Project UX Podcast where Jeff interviews most of the speakers and organizers.

speakers at WIAD Dallas
Speakers at WIAD included (left to right) Lana Gibbons, Ben Judy, LaBoria Willis, Brian Sullivan and Loretta Hudelot. Courtney Cox Wakefield and Jon Sandruck not pictured.

Card Sorting for the Enterprise Interface

 

Card sorting for enterprise software Jennifer Blatz UX Design
Card sorting is a process one can use to create an orderly system. It is being used here to organize a portion of medical enterprise software.

Card sorting can be used for much more than just organizing a website’s navigation. In fact, that is why information architecture is such a broad term. And one tool for helping people organizing and creating a structure is a card sort.

So what exactly is card sorting? According to the Wikipedia entry for card sorting: “Card sorting is a simple technique in user experience design where a group of subject experts or “users,” however inexperienced with design, are guided to generate a category tree or folksonomy. It is a useful approach for designing information architecture, workflows, menu structure, or web site navigation paths.”

Now that we know what it means, how do we use it? Or in other words, why do we use it? In my case, I wanted to test a few of the doctors who use my company’s enterprise software. We have a portion of the software that is Electronic Medical Records, aka EMR. I wanted to see how different participants thought the information should be structured in the patient’s EMR.

  • Should each entry be strictly entered chronologically?
  • And if that is the case, is the oldest entry first or newest entry first?
  • Should the most important information be surfaced to the top somehow?
  • Is there a way to create bundles of information or sub groups?
  • What does the user think the best way this information should be organized?

All of these questions could prompt hours and hours of discussion and speculation. So instead of endlessly talking about it, let’s get direct feedback from the users.

I know that many UX Designers use post-it notes on a wall to organize thoughts and create a taxonomy. However, what do you do if you don’t have a wall? And what if you do if your tester is not located in the same room as you? In other words, you need to perform the card sorting remotely.

I looked high and low for online and electronic resources to perform a card sort. I found that most of the online options were either too expensive or simply did not offer the functionality I was looking for. In the end, I settled on the free Mac program called XSort. This great little program (though visually very outdated) had the basic features I needed to perform a card sort. It allowed me to have more than 10 cards, it had the ability for the user to create subgroups within groups, and the cards would not automatically “snap” in to place like some services would. The users could place the cards wherever they wanted to on the screen.

So far, we have performed a few pilot tests with a handful of doctors to work out some bugs. The main lesson we are learning is that what the user is saying as he/she is going through the card sort is actually more valuable than the actual results. So instead of “throwing the test over the wall,” or in the online word, just sending out a card sort link and viewing the results, it is actually better to have the user talk you through their thought process. What is also valuable is that being able to moderate the card sort, and to answer technical or clarifying questions probably produces more accurate results. If a user is confused about a term or abbreviation, he or she might categorize that differently, and thus throwing off the card sort, than if the tester clearly understands the term. Finally one more valuable gem that I realized while performing cards sorts: Keep your mouth shut! Let the tester talk you through the awkward silences. If you must speak, ask probing and clarifying questions. But do your best to try not to suggest ANY way that a tester could group items. They tester will struggle at first. But that is OK. Just let them absorb all the cards and try to make sense out of them the best way that they can. You will get great user feedback if you actually let the user provide you that unbiased feedback.

The bottom line lesson here: Yes kids, card sorting can be used for more than just organizing navigation of a website. Try it out!

Creating Wireframes for Dashboard Development

Jennifer Blatz Design UX

 

Wireframes are not for everyone. I understand there might not be time to create wireframes. Some people don’t see the value of this middle step. “Just sketch out some ideas. Once you like something just code it up.” Others may not have it in the budget to create some deliverables.

Wireframes and deliverables by Jennifer Blatz UX
Wireframes can be created in a variety of programs. I chose Adobe Illustrator to create these first drafts of the dashboard.

I have to admit, I am guilty of not always creating wireframes. To me, they can be a luxury. There are times I don’t really have the time or the patience to go beyond sketches (if I have even created those) to going to the middle step of creating wireframes.

I strongly suggest that if you do have the time, and the budget, that you should make the effort to create some static wireframes. Here are a few advantages of creating wireframes:

  • Get the concepts out of your head and on to a page/layout
  • Visualize how your designs might work
  • Get early feedback on your designs before it goes in to code
  • Allow for quick changes before too committed to design
  • Facilitate discussion across the team and with stakeholders
  • Provides clarity for communication
  • For developers to understand the functionality of the site
  • To show the information architecture and navigation structure of websites
  • Cost-effective level of fidelity for quick changes
  • Print

Site map for Hollywood walking tour app

I am working through some Information Architecture (IA) for my Cal State Fullerton class. For the app in development, the Hollywood Walking Tour, I need to organize the interface and interactions. Here is a first draft of the IA:

Information architecture for Hollywood Walking Tour App
First level Information architecture for Hollywood Walking Tour App.

More organized site map

Though I don’t feel like this is complete, this was the site map I turned in for the Web and App design class. I think this structure is a good start, but I wonder how it will evolve as I really start wire framing the interface and performing the usability tests. Until then, we will take every step in the process.

Site map for Hollywood Walking Tour App
Site map for Hollywood Walking Tour App.