I’ve been a little quiet lately. One reason for this is that I have started a full time job where I actually have an office to go to five days a week. Aside from the rude shock of working full time after not doing so since my son was born 5 years ago, I am enjoying it immensely. I have moved into a new environment, that of local government. I am learning a lot about the structural design of Council websites. I’ve done a bit of poking around, looking at what people are doing. Generally the structure of the sites is ok but there is plenty of scope for improvement. In general they lack a strong user focus. They have not taken their IA far enough. So, even though I am not actually employed as an IA (specialist IAs are a bit of a luxury in the country), I am excited about the possibilities.
A large amount of my IA work has been done in the higher education sector. I have worked on sites with wildly different audiences and purposes but in terms of the overall goals and culture of the institution, the affect they have on the site has been roughly similar. Over the years I have developed a keen knowledge of the politics of universities, the history of their websites and how both of these things affect the sites. Generally when you are designing or even just maintaining a site structure you have to wrestle with these things daily. There is pressure to prioritise the material of influential groups. There are people who think the web is there to showcase their work, rather than as an extension of their work. There are people who insist that org chart = site structure. Of course, these problems also exist in the local government environment.
Problems like this seem to stem from people’s conception of information, their relationship to it and how they make sense of it. Most successful site structures work because they categorise and organise information according to how the audience makes sense of that information. The paths to the information, the context in which pieces of information operate combined with things like usable, predictable interfaces make a site easier (or harder depending on how well it’s done) to use. The problem seems to be with people being unable to step outside their own conception of the information and how it all fits together and into someone else’s shoes. Doing IA involves a lot of this: put all the information in a big bucket, pretend you are someone else, arrange it all in a way that makes sense. It’s the being-someone-else bit with which most people have difficulty.
Generally most Council sites I have looked at fail to get totally into the shoes of the audience. A lot of them are part way there but they still tend to organise their information according to the structure of the Council to some extent.
Councils also seem to struggle with the diversity of audiences and depth of information they require. A broad audience / deep information site is very difficult to get right. Often you have to break it up into smaller pieces and concentrate on those, even creating a set of sites rather than one big monolith. Having said that, the punter usually looks at the web presence of an organisation as one big monolith so there has to be some kind of big picture view from within the organisation. Those who are deep in the content, the content specialists, the policy makers etc, are never well-placed to see this big picture. They are very good at knowing their material very well, they’re not that good at seeing where it sits in terms of the rest of the information output of the organisation, nor how the audience interprets it. They sometimes forget that people come to websites for basic information; everyday, normal information – not deep, strategic or heavily-documented information. They usually want an answer to a question. Quickly.
So, my first challenge, once I get my head around how a Council works from the inside, is to step back outside, look at all our information and see if it makes sense for the average punter.
Filed under: council, information architecture | 5 Comments
Tags: design, ia, structure
May I ask what council websites you deem have suitable IA?
I was not trying to slag off all Council websites, so I hope that’s not how it came across! I have seen good examples of IA on the sites I have looked at, but it’s difficult to find one that has really blown me away. (I don’t pretend to have looked at all Council sites btw. Unfortunately that kind of research is beyond my capabilities).
Some of the good/interesting things I have seen (and this is not exhaustive):
City of Sydney
Does the top level categories reasonably well.
Perth and Kinross Council
Has a nice topic-based approach (left hand menu).
Fix My Street
Some things that are not so good but are quite prevalent:
- Second level navigation lists that are way too long
- The use of general terms at the top level (eg ‘Services’) that mean little to the audience
- Prioritisation of the Council’s view of things, rather than the audience
Basically I think there is room for improvement with the structure of Council sites but I would say that for most sites. It is a very difficult thing to get right. The web and the expectations of users change so rapidly that it’s almost a moving target.
As I said in the post, having an in-house person dedicated to the structure of a site or even interface design is rare in a Council simply because there are not enough resources. People tend to do two or three jobs at the same time. I think it’s one of the great things about working in a Council. People are willing to take on something that may not be their speciality because they know that if they don’t things aren’t going to get done. Everyone learns.
So resources are one issue.
The other issue, as I said in the post, is the sheer depth and breadth of information that is required on the site. Getting a top-level schema right for such a large amount of information is difficult and I don’t pretend to have the answer. It is something though that I want to do more work on. I think more work with audiences is one thing that could be done and I think discussion among people who work on Council sites would not be a bad thing either.
Of course, if you know of some great Council sites please feel free to let me know. I am really keen to find more and to discuss this further. Such a discussion can only benefit all those who work on Council sites.
I agree that, “Getting a top-level schema right” is the killer and I think there is definitely something to the idea of using multiple websites to get the information across. The council almost certainly won’t have the staff to manage all that information flow, perhaps the solution would be more community engagement. Council documents could be provided in a fairly rudimentary way with further information assembled by related groups. Maybe I am stating the obvious… having a six year old climbing on me whilst typing seems to suck out any deep thought.
Yes, the idea of multiple sites is appealing. It was something we just couldn’t avoid in uni sites and I think that info-heavy sites, and those with such a broad audience with such varied needs – like a Council – need to consider it. I know a menu system isn’t ‘physical’ but I want to say ’sometimes a menu system can’t physically cope with information of that breadth and depth’. It’s just impossible to present it in an easy-to-use manner. And yes, information flow is definitely a problem for organisations like this. It’s not like the info isn’t there somewhere nor is there a problem with someone looking after the website, it’s bringing the two together which is the problem.
Ahh, it’s been a long day…and my five year old isn’t even climbing all over me
Possibly getting a bit late in the year for this spring thread.
I’ve had a lot to do with starting up big web sites for gov orgs and such. (not technical or IA but project overview) I also have to use web sites for various work.
As a “professional” user I like to see a great breadth and depth of information – strategy papers, annual reports, stats, reviews going back years etc. However as a sophisticated user I don’t expect the information – as it gets more arcane and in depth – has to be as simply presented as it is for the average user. So that I don’t mind, and I think others don’t mind, going three or four or more clicks away to a simple text site with a list of links to .pdfs of reports and basic link descriptions. I don’t even mind if it’s badly organised – as long as theres no flash – its far better to have badly organised info than none at all or not enough. What I do value at this end is search-ability both fuzzy and focussed.
As a ratepayer of council services I’m pretty much just like anyone else. I want several ways to find info, – if i’m complaining about noise – I don’t know if its under health or environment or bylaws or – I know it won’t be under noise, and a phone and email contact and some instructions as to what to do if its after hours – and ideally an faq on the subject.