Project Overview
Team of three.
My role: Key task flows, Content Inventory, Card sorting analysis, IA testing analysis, Sitemap, Designing low fidelity mobile prototypes.
In the highly competitive medical equipment and devices industry, Pacific Northwest X-Ray (PNWX), suppliers of X-ray machines and other radiological equipment have sought to improve and enhance their web presence to attract more business by making it easier to find their products, evaluate and compare prices, and order supplies.
This company sells a wide range of X-ray and radiology-related products for hospitals, private practices, dentists, and even veterinarians—from large X-ray machines that cost tens-of-thousands of dollars to inexpensive cleaning wipes. Their inventory is so vast that a well-designed content architecture is essential; instead, however, the site has expanded haphazardly, without a clear content architecture. This has resulted in a labyrinthine website that ultimately compels users to rely on the search function. The usability deficit is so great that it has begun to erode at their base of customers. Users’ frustrations are compounded by the site’s lack of support for online purchases.
Our redesign of PNWX’s website provides the following improvements:
● Mobile website redesigned and reorganized for improved readability
● Navigation that meets web standards and customer expectations
● Product information that is easier to find; no more long lists of links
● Account creation and online ordering instead of reliance on over-the-phone and paper transactions
Major Content Items
Table 1 provides a comparison of the site’s major top-level content categories and our reorganization of those categories, as well as new functions.
Table 1. Reorganization of PNWX’s Main Navigation and New Functionality Current Website Redesigned Website Equivalents
Testing Strategy
We performed a content inventory before conducting three types of user tests to assess our assumptions and inform important decisions about how best to restructure the content. We have summarized our process in the sequence below. For more information about our research methods, see Testing Process.
1) Competitive analysis and user personas
2) Content inventory
3) Key-task flows
4) Content audit
5) Card sorting: 3 rounds, 14 participants
6) Iterative content audits
7) Initial sitemap
8) IA testing: 2 rounds, 13 participants
9) Sitemap
10) Initial wireframes
11) First-click test: 1 round, 9 participants
12) Wireframes
13) Final Report
Content Inventory
Our first content inventory yielded dozens of redundant items on content links looping under major content items. We reduced redundancy by adding top-level groups to the main navigation. We also created new subgroups of similar items using more common and intuitive names to help users more directly find and identify PNWX’s products.
Once we completed the item categorization as a group, we conducted the tests described in the next section. We made two significant audits of the content inventory in response to the results of our tests, some of them conflicting with initial assumptions that the test results did not bear out. Here is the link to view our content inventory Content Inventory Revisions & Site Mapping. You can review our audits of the content inventory via this link.
Snapshot of Content inventory of the current website (March 2020 - June 2020)
Card Sorting
We conducted three rounds of hybrid card-sorting tests on the Optimal Workshop platform. Participants were recruited through peer groups (snowball method). They were instructed to complete the card sort on a desktop, laptop, or tablet. Round 1 was the closed card sort between team members.
The second card sort consisted of 41 cards and 9 categories. A total of five participants completed the test. Two (40 percent) out of five participants worked in the healthcare industry and had some knowledge of radiology. Participants answered 1–3 questions before taking the test; those who responded that they have worked in the healthcare industry were asked to rank their knowledge of radiology. (“Which of these statements best describes your level of knowledge about radiology?”)
Analysis Results were overall poor. To our surprise, a self-assessed background knowledge in radiology did not make a significant difference in results or lead to predictable outcomes, but our sample was also very small. We confirmed the position of 12 cards that achieved higher consistency. Given the overall poor results, we revised 12 cards and added nine others for the next round. Table 3 provides a summary of changes between rounds one and two.
Round 2 Cards and Categories
Analysis Results were overall poor. To our surprise, a self-assessed background knowledge in radiology did not make a significant difference in results or lead to predictable outcomes, but our sample was also very small. We confirmed the position of 12 cards that achieved higher consistency. Given the overall poor results, we revised 12 cards and added nine others for the next round. Table 3 provides a summary of changes between rounds one and two.
Snapshot of Card Sort Round 2 Result
Table: Summary of Changes Resulting from Round 2 Results
Round 3
The final sort consisted of 31 cards and 9 categories. A total of six participants completed the test. Five (83 percent) out of six participants said they have worked in the healthcare industry and have at least some prior knowledge about radiology.
Round 3 Cards and Categories
Analysis Adjusting our acceptance threshold to account for the technical nature of the material and the possibility that our participants were not a true sample of PNWX’s actual users enabled us to reach full acceptance of 45 percent of the labels. We continued to refine the labels as we moved into the IA testing phase.
Snapshot of Card Sort Round 3 Result
IA Testing
We conducted two information architecture tests on the Optimal Workshop platform using Treejack. Participants were recruited through peer networks.
Tree Test, Round One
This test consisted of five tasks in random order. Participants’ pathways through the menu structure were recorded to understand their decisions as they attempted to complete each task.
Tasks
1. You are a dentist who wants to buy lead aprons. Please select where you would find lead aprons.
2. You are a radiologist who is researching different portable X-ray systems. Please select where you would go to find different brands of portable X-ray systems.
3. You are a doctor at a private practice who needs to buy IV poles for patients in wheelchairs. Please select where you would go to find IV poles.
4. You are a purchaser for the Greenwood Medical Clinic. The radiology department has requested a new metal detector. Please select where you would go to find a metal detector.
5. You are a purchaser for the Greenwood Medical Clinic. The radiology department has requested a new supply of foam supports for taking shoulder X-rays. Please select where you would go to find the positioning foams.
A total of seven participants completed the test. Two participants (29 percent) said they have worked in the healthcare industry and have at least some prior knowledge about radiology.
Analysis Participants’ responses were mixed, possibly because 71 percent had no prior knowledge of radiology. We anticipated this difficulty by including some tasks that relied on general instead of domain-specific knowledge. Hence we received more consistent positive results on those tasks. For example, all participants achieved 100% direct success for Task 1 (lead aprons); Task 5 (positioning foams) received 86% success, with 57% of participants finding the location of positioning foams directly. Hence we confirmed the navigation of these tasks and moved the others to another round of IA testing.
First Click Test
Sitemap draft
Final Sitemap
Wireframes
The wireframes were created and developed on Figma.
Please view this link to see all the wireframes with annotations and key task flows 1 and 2: Wireframes with annotations
Below is the video of navigating through the mobile wireframes for below tasks.
Key Task 1: https://youtu.be/D0HsCRyUcd8
Key Task 2: https://youtu.be/81eImBwck3c
You can also try on navigating through the wireframes yourself from the below link. Link to Mid-fi mobile Prototype:
Key Task 2: https://youtu.be/81eImBwck3c
You can also try on navigating through the wireframes yourself from the below link. Link to Mid-fi mobile Prototype:
https://www.figma.com/proto/1EjEBWLher3jdS7bipsElD/Pacific-Northwest-X-ray?node-id=151%3A273&viewport=393%2C-704%2C0.260896235704422&scaling=scale-down
Details to come.
