[Sigia-l] Determining Users' Mental Model to Drive Site Architecture?

[Bollaert, Jodi]

Greetings Siggies...

I'm looking for advice from my experienced IA colleagues on how to elicit
users' mental model of content organization to drive the site architecture
for an intranet.  I understand an open card sort might typically be a good
way to go, but my client is wary of that approach since it may totally
negate weeks of time they've spent deliberating over two potentially good
architectures.  What they really want to do is decide which of the two
architectures is best, and THEN do a close-ended card sorting exercise with
the one version (keeping their high-level categories intact, and letting
users decide where a stack of subcategories should go).

The first of the two current options is a product/division-oriented site
architecture; the second a task-oriented architecture within which
products/division information would be available.  To narrow their choice to
one architecture, I've suggested that they spend a bit of time interviewing
users to learn more about their mental models -- do users tend to think
about their intranet more in terms of products/divisions or tasks?  I'm
hopeful that the results of the interviews will reveal which would be the
more intuitive architecture.  I suppose it may also suggest that a
combination is best, however, the client has already communicated that the
constraints of their CMS may make such a strategy very difficult.

Questions I would ask in the user interviews include:

- What information do you typically look for?
- Where would you expect to find this information?

I'm thinking that their answers will have a product- or task-oriented slant,
and that may be enough to choose one approach, and move on to more testing.
Since I've not experienced this situation before, I'm feeling on shaky
ground.  Does anyone have any suggestions/comments regarding the method
(interviews) used to discover users' mental models?  Is it the right
approach, or is something else more suitable?  If it's an o.k. approach,
what questions can I ask to ensure I get the information the client needs to
help them make a decision?

Your help, as always, is greatly appreciated.

Jodi    

******************************************
Jodi Bollaert
Compuware Professional Services
1.313.227.7300
jodi.bollaert at compuware.com

"Specializing in Usability, Interaction Design, Information Architecture,
Instructional Design, and More."
 



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