Review by: Dreier, Matthias (2005-03-21)

As information architecture became popular not until the late 1990ies, it is clear that in 1999 most web sites had flawed information architecture. The authors of this article examined the impact of information architecture on the usability of the web site of the Dalhousie University, Canada. The web site has won three design awards but is nevertheless an illustrative example for the lack of clear information structure.

The authors conducted a usability test with twenty-four participants from six faculties of Dalhousie University. The users were asked to answer six simple questions, that students at Dalhousie University might encounter, e. g. where does one get an e-mail account. Performance was measured by assessing the number of questions that were answered correctly and the time taken to find the answer. User satisfaction was assessed by a Likert-scaled questionnaire. Additionally the users’ actions were logged in order to analyse their navigation strategies.

On average the users were able to answer 3.7 out of six questions and took 88.3 seconds to find an answer. Pre-tests showed that an experienced user could find the answers in 13.6 seconds. The Likert-scaled results with an average 3.25 on a scale from 1 to 5 (‘1’ is ‘strongly disagree/dislike’ and ‘5’ the opposite) were not that disappointing. However, the qualitative feedback revealed a strong dissatisfaction. Users found the navigation scheme and the labels unclear, illogical, and misleading. They felt lost and they missed a search feature.

The navigation strategies were interesting as well. In general, the users tried to proceed systematically. They tried to understand the labels of the navigation elements. If the labels did not match their concepts they tried to exclude implausible elements. Eventually they used trial and error.

Although the authors describe only one case, readers can learn much from their findings. The Dalhousie University web site violated almost every rule of information architecture. The navigation structure was too narrow and too deep. Even the third hierarchy was rather abstract. Labels were ambiguous, for example ‘Academic’ and ‘Departments’ are individual menu items but are regarded as synonyms by the users. Other examples are ‘News’ and ‘What’s new?’ or ‘Academic rules’ and ‘University rules’. When the primary navigation fails and no search feature, no alphabetical index, no site map, and no FAQ page exists users rely on strange analogies: Because the computer centre is physically located underneath the library, some users started at the ‘Library’ web page to look for an e-mail account.

The article has only eleven pages but covers most of the important aspects of information architecture. It is not the scientific approach or the quantitative data that makes the article worth reading. A great benefit (and pleasure) are the quoted user statements. Nothing is more convincing (or embarrassing if it is your web site) than watching experienced users fail to complete simple tasks. Deduced from the users navigation problems the authors give hands-on recommendations for web site information architecture, ready to be applied to any kind of web site. Therefore this article provides a good introduction to information architecture for anyone who is involved in creating or designing web sites.

Source:
http://www.elearning-reviews.org/topics/human-computer-interaction/information-design-information-architecture/1999-gullikson-et-al-ia-academic-website-usability/