Week 5: Information Architecture

UXD720

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This week’s content covers the onboarding experience, information architecture and card sorting.

User onboarding

User onboarding is the technique that allows the users to discover the digital product and convert them into registered users. The onboarding experience is a critical part of the user journey because it can minimise user dropout (Froehlich et al. 2021: 1). A successful approach is to implement doing-oriented onboarding, and this enables the user to experience some of the product's core features through the stages of account creation (Terres et al. 2019: 1). Implementing features such as goals in the onboarding process will increase behaviour change (Terres et al. 2019: 12).

A case study experimented with 150 participants testing their commitment to the app using personalised nudges. Results revealed that personalised nudges successfully increased user commitment and intentions to use the app (Terres et al. 2019: 1). I will be implementing push notifications regularly so users can receive positive reminders to use the app and get updated on new health articles. Users can also turn off push notifications if they prefer.

I will be developing the existing app, Nutricoach, for my prototype. The recommended number of frames for onboarding is 1-5; however, Nutricoach's onboarding has approximately 25 frames. It was essential for Nutricoach to include additional frames because it implements doing-oriented onboarding, which provides the user with a personalised app experience. The app asks the user a set of personal questions to tailor the nutrition plan bespoke to them. However, I have noticed some of the frames prolonged the onboarding experience, and there is room for improvement to enhance the user journey.

Figure 1: Nutricoach onboarding frames

Using the learnings from this week’s content, I will be implementing doing-oriented and benefit-oriented onboarding in my prototype. I will be using a similar approach Nutricoach currently has but improving the experience by making the personalised onboarding concise and quicker. Furthermore, I will be designing a benefit-oriented onboarding to present the main functionality of the app’s service and what the user can expect from the app.

Figure 2: This is my initial idea of my onboarding journey. Although the journey has dramatically improved from the original app, the onboarding process was still too long, which may obstruct the user from moving forward.

In the webinar, I asked my tutors and peers if it was possible to include more than five frames in the onboarding process. They stated that creating a personalised app is a little different because you set the user up before they begin. However, many have said that users tend to want to use the app straight away, and others stated they want to test out the app before giving away their personal information. Therefore, I have tweaked the onboarding process slightly to introduce the user to the app functionality to entice them to sign up. Once the user has signed up, they can participate in the set-up questions to personalise the app to their needs.

Figure 3: The improved flowchart shows I have condensed the onboarding process by removing unnecessary frames.

The ‘introducing app’ frame shows a brief overview of the features included. Telling users the app’s features may not be enough; offering them a little glimpse of its functionality is better. This entices them to use the app further and creates a trusting relationship between the user and the app.

New users can test out the heart rate measuring feature before committing to creating an account. If they believe the app is useful, they can choose to sign up. Once they sign up, users will input their data in the personalised onboarding process to tailor the app to their needs and goals.

Information Architecture

The term “information architecture” was first coined by Richard Saul Wurman. He refers to information architecture (IA) as the “adaptation and evolution of thinking, tools and techniques” of information (Fenn and Hobbs 2014: 17). As time has passed, IA is now the structural design of a product or service’s infrastructure or environment (Lacerda et al. 2018: 730). This includes the navigation system of websites and mobile applications that support the usability and findability of the product (Morville and Rosenfeld 2006: 17).

There are many variations of navigation that are implemented on a website or mobile app. In this week’s activity, I explore the different types of navigation and plan how I can apply these methods to my prototype.

Figure 4: Navigation activity

Card sorting

Card sorting is a method for understanding and categorising information. This method is used widely in the project's research phase when you need to structure certain elements, such as the navigation system.

I apply the closed-card sorting method by listing all the content I intend to have in my product and organising them in a way that makes sense. I found this method useful because it will help form my wireframe structure.

Figure 5: Card sorting the content. The categories are the options in the global navigation.

Reflection

The onboarding experience is an integral part of the user journey as this helps to engage and lock users in the app experience. The user will continue to use the app if they believe it will support them personally. I have decided that developing the onboarding journey will be one of the significant improvements to my prototype.

It was challenging to condense the number of frames in the current onboarding journey in the Nutricoach app. However, I have solved this issue by focusing on the relevant information the user wants to see to entice them to use it.

I would like to look into how I can engage users in the onboarding experience by providing helpful content in each frame. I will research existing onboarding processes from other apps and spark inspiration for my prototype.

References

FENN, Terence and Jason HOBBS. 2014. ‘The Information Architecture of Meaning Making’. In Andrea RESMINI (ed.). Reframing Information Architecture. Cham: Springer International Publishing, 11–30.

FROEHLICH, Michael, Charlotte KOBIELLA, Albrecht SCHMIDT and Florian ALT. 2021. ‘Is It Better With Onboarding? Improving First-Time Cryptocurrency App Experiences’. In Designing Interactive Systems Conference 2021. New York, NY, USA: Association for Computing Machinery, 78–89.

LACERDA, Flávia, Mamede LIMA-MARQUES and Andrea RESMINI. 2018. ‘An Information Architecture Framework for the Internet of Things’. Philosophy & technology 32(4), 727–44.

MORVILLE, Peter and Louis ROSENFELD. 2006. Information Architecture for the World Wide Web: Designing Large-Scale Web Sites. ‘O’Reilly Media, Inc.’

TERRES, Philipp, Johannes KLUMPE, Dominik JUNG and Oliver KOCH. 2019. ‘Digital Nudges for User Onboarding: Turning Visitors into Users’ [online]. Available at: https://core.ac.uk/download/pdf/301379565.pdf.