Analytic Design Group

Last week a client asked me that very question, “What are the best labels to use on this website?” ADGi had been engaged to complete an assessment of the company’s current website's information architecture. To do so we used our proprietary tool, Navtester and compared the results with their site analytics for a three month period that covered the same period as the navigation testing.

In 2008 I led a large intranet implementation project where the senior sponsors demanded that there be a governance plan developed. But when asked what governance meant, they were mostly interested in making sure that content was updated and that there be some form of oversight to ensure that business units were using the same platform for sharing information. Governance was more about who owns what and making sure everyone plays well with others.

One of the main attributes of the design work we at ADGi do (and when I say design I mean interaction design and information architecture, not so much visual design) is that all of it is evidence-based. That is, all of it, and I really mean all of it, every interaction, every node in the site map, is driven out of user research and expert analysis. I also insist that the designers who work here can articulate what the evidence or expert analysis is that led them to making the design decision they did.

A usability study, is that like a focus group?

Clients sometimes ask this question when we start talking about doing usability testing on their website or product. The answer is “well sort of, but not really.”

I’ve always hated card sorts, they’re the sucker punch of user research. The goal of user research is to find out about user behaviors,  preferences, current experience, expectations and so on. We are seeking to understand user needs or requirements. There are numerous techniques with which to do user research and we generally approach whatever we’re doing with the caveat that we’re NOT asking the user how to design something, just what their impressions, experience, and feelings are towards an existing or proposed product, site, concept etc.