Association for Information and Image Management (AIIM)
Overview
The Association for Information and Image Management (AIIM) is the global community for information professionals. One of their greatest strengths is publishing content, but sales were down because their constituents had difficulty finding specific content.
Opportunity
We wanted to learn how AIIM's constituent base viewed the website content and understand where they expected content to live.* We leveraged that research to organize their information in a way that allows users to find what they need and that encouraged transactions such as training and content purchases.
Outcome
AIIM now boasts a user-driven information architecture that and are increasing their sales****
Awards
Project Details
Role: Conducted user research including surveys and card sorts, participated in stakeholder interviews, and collaborated with team members in ideation and sketching sessions. Produced a sitemap and created wireframes to reflect the findings of the user research.
Tools: Axure, Optimal Sort, Post-Its, Sharpie Pen & Paper
Topics: Information Architecture, Sitemapping, Content Strategy, Wireframing, & Client Relations
Timeline: 4 Months
Team: Brightfind
Research
CARD SORT STUDY
We conducted a card sort study using a software called OptimalSort to inform the information architecture of the new website. In this study, participants organized secondary navigation content items into categories that made sense to them. Once participants placed all the items into categories, they suggest a logical name for each group.
The Similarity Matrix shows how often items were grouped together.
The hierarchical tree diagram shows the relationships between the different groups composed by constituents.
This constituent data helped us understand how constituents mentally organized AIIM's content and where they expected to find specific information within the aiim.org website.
SITEMAP
Analysis of the card sort data provided a user-driven foundation for the new information architecture, and I created a sitemap that reflected constituents' expectations and beliefs about how the content should be organized.
DESIGN
SKETCHES
WIREFRAMES
To help AIIM realize their vision, I created low-fidelity mockups of various pages based off of the sketches and taking into account the *****. I chose to do low-fidelity to allow AIIM to focus on the layout and structure of the page, and how it could support both user needs and AIIM's strategic business goals. Removing the copy (both lorem ipsum and real content) allowed them to focus on the larger picture of the page.
Once completed, the mockups were linked together to create a prototype that was used for interviews and testing with employers to validate our design choices.
Final Product
See it live here: aiim.org.
Next Steps
AIIM valued the ***, and have switched to a more iterative approach of validating assumptions bit by bit, rather than overhauling the website entirely every few years. We are working with them on a maintenance basis to review analytics and monitor their progress to ensure that they are meeting their strategic goals moving forward.
Client Feedback
I can’t remember who said, “It doesn’t matter what you think, it’s what your users think.” That was really helpful too. You insisted that we do a card sort and even helped us run that. It was eye opening in terms of what our audiences were expecting of navigation and what they wanted to find under what categories, and we would not have necessarily thought that same way. And nicely, their decisions were unanimous.
-Peggy Winton, AIIM Interim President & CEO