Our group was asked to undertake an information architecture study and responsive redesign of the Voorheesville Public Library website in order to facilitate a user-centered website to better serve the needs of their patrons.
A full design story can be found here.
Desktop Wireframe prototype • Mobile Wireframe prototype
We initially conducted user research regarding library use and library website use by several representative populations, to better understand the behavior and needs of the users of the library’s website. This research included surveys and interviews. From this research we created Personas, which represented an archetype of each user group.
An inventory of the site was performed to create 33 cards for users testing. Eight users were then asked to sort these cards categories and name these categories. From those results we derived six navigational categories for the site.
Based on the cardsorting, we created a menu tree for Treejack testing. However, when we conducted Treejack tests with seven participants, we found that users still failed to associate some labels with actual contents. With the Treejack results and additional adjustments, a new site map was created.
At this point we also compared five relevant websites – four other library websites and one bookseller website – on five different criteria in order to understand how these design issues were handled.
We then began sketching and created a paper prototype. That paper prototype was then subject to additional user testing.
With some final modifications, we put together a wireframe prototype for a responsive desktop and mobile site.
Videos of both prototypes below:
kaitlin*mlk 