WSAD Alpha - Information architecture
A site’s information architecture is the “recipe for cooking good user experience” (iA). It emerges from the user research during the discovery phase and the initial sketches and development work on the core of the alpha.
Overall, our approach to content is to try to create structured content made up of fields of information or content objects rather than a single blob of unstructured content. This approach separates content from presentation and encourages re-use across different platforms. (We’ll be writing more about content types in another post.) For now, please take a look at our initial proposal for the information architecture for WorldSkills Abu Dhabi 2017. It will continue to evolve throughout the project, but the notes below are correct for March 2016.
Competitors, skills and countries
We began with the central elements of competitors participating in skills competitions and being part of a country team. We developed these elements, layouts and content including how they link together. You can see the results of this work on the preview site. There’s lots of work still to be done on these parts, but these central elements, built upon web services provided by WorldSkills International, provide a central framework around which the rest of the site is being developed.
Why WorldSkills Abu Dhabi matters
One of the most important user groups to emerge during the discovery phase was the UAE student, who knows little if anything about the WorldSkills competitions, but tends to be enthusiastic about the event and proud that his or her country is hosting it. We’re going to create a scrolling story with lots of photographs and moving images explaining Why WorldSkills Abu Dhabi matters. This will be the focal point for new users, a funnel down which we send people before providing onward journeys to the rest of the site. It’s where we will try to inspire people about the WorldSkills event and connect with them at an emotional and human (rather than institutional) level. Central to this section is the story of an archetypal competitor showing how WorldSkills changed her life, which in turn creates a virtuous circle inspiring other young people to get involved.
Get involved
This section brings together all the possible areas of participation and support for WorldSkills Abu Dhabi ranging how to compete to volunteering to jobs. How to compete is a question that emerges a lot, but the answer is complex and depends on the young person’s member country. Our approach is to explain the process for young people in the UAE and provide an autocomplete box so the user can search for their country and get a link to the member country’s website. We realise it’s not always clear from the member’s country’s website and so we may simply be passing on the problem, but it’s as far as we’ve got at the moment.
Your hosts
This section was originally called “venue”, but something involving “hosts” is a bit more convivial. It could simply be titled Abu Dhabi, but that doesn’t make it as clear that all the information about ADNEC will be here as well. Here’s where we can promote Abu Dhabi as a place to hold international events as well as provide a brief guide about what to do in the city. We can also provide all the health and safety, exhibitor and other logistical information about the venue and the event here.
FAQs
So often these sections are full of questions that are not asked very frequently. They don’t represent what users really want to know. We’d like to reframe this section as “the most exciting and interesting things from social media” rather than “some text we had to come up to fill a blank screen”. Users tend to ask questions through platforms such as Twitter and Facebook and here’s where we can collate the best of those questions and answers. We need to create a feedback loop from social media channels, so that we publish what matters most to our users. We could also consider innovative ways to promote this content such as this Twitter bot which provides a way to sends a useful link to a Twitter user based on a set of keywords and responses.
We hope you found this information useful. If you have any comments or feedback, please let us know using the link at the top of the page.