world ia day, london: ia at gov.uk

Gaynor Burns and Vicky BuserInformation Architects at GOV.UKGovernment Digital Service@gaynorburns @vickybuser

Information architecture and GOV.UK

“Information architecture (IA) is a design discipline that is focused on making information findable and understandable”

GDSPeter Morville, Louis Rosenfeld & Jorge Arango

… based on user needs

GDS

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“The user should not have to navigate the departmental structure of Government before finding the service or content they need”

GDSDirectgov 2010 and beyond: Revolution not evolution

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The challenge

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190,000+ content itemsPublished by 300+ organisations

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Content of different levels of complexity, granularity, tone, target audience

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Different taxonomies have evolvedThey’re not completeNot all content is tagged to them

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Existing tagging is complicated

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Who are our users?

10m visitors per week

All of us - either directly or indirectly will have needs of government

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GDSwww.flickr.com/photos/nomadyc/200334975

GDSwww.gov.uk/guidance/keeping-a-pet-pig-or-micropig

GDSwww.flickr.com/photos/woolgenie/16093952683/

GDSwww.gov.uk/government/collections/early-years-childcare-registering-with-ofsted

GDShttps://www.flickr.com/photos/conred/24752276586

GDSwww.gov.uk/guidance/zika-virus

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We can’t just focus on the most popular needs

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Some users have nowhere else to go

Journeys start from the content

What else is there?Where can I go from here?Is this everything?

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Our approach

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Do the hard work to make it simple

GDSwww.gov.uk/design-principles

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“I didn’t know what to google as I didn’t know what was available”

GDShttps://insidegovuk.blog.gov.uk

Only 6% users use site search*

*That’s still 5m searches a month though!

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Principle 1 = one taxonomy

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Start with needs*

*user needs not government needs

GDSwww.gov.uk/design-principles

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Principle 2 = simple tagging interface

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Principle 3 = simple display rules

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Consistent design patterns for browse at every level

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And consistent page-level orientation

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Solution = taxonomy + tagging + display

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Simple enough to scale Flexible enough to adapt

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Be consistent, not uniform

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We’re learning about our approach by starting to trial it with something small

Our first theme is Education

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Iterate

Then iterate again

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Tips

Importance of content strategy

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Automation and tools can really help…

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Automation and tools can really help…

...but you still need people to do the thinking

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Analytics are hugely helpful…

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Analytics are hugely helpful…

...as long as you know the question you’re asking AND have time to analyse the data

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Communicate and collaborate

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Working in an organisation that values user research is vital

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Where are we now?

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We’re still working through education

That’s about 4% of the total content

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We still have lots of open questions about governance

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“The need for logical user-centric structures and taxonomies has never gone away”

GDShttps://fiveminuteswithergonjon.wordpress.com

GDS

“The user should not have to navigate the departmental structure of Government before finding the service or content they need”

GDSDirectgov 2010 and beyond: Revolution not evolution

Thanks!

Gaynor Burns and Vicky Buser@gaynorburns @vickybuser