Adding content to a site over time can make finding things difficult!
The next step in my re-design process and arguably the most important is to look at the Information Architecture (IA) of my site and how it helps shape the User Experience (UX). I have a lot of good content on this site that is hopefully useful for the small business owner trying to learn more about web design. I’ve got a glossary, slideshow, questionnaire, blog posts like this one, as well as information about me, my skills and my portfolio. But 4 years in, a lot of this content has just been added on and for someone who has never visited this site before, they may leave before even realizing that all this good stuff is here.
To gain some perspective on all this, (because as the business owner, I’m way too close to see the big picture), I called a friend and colleague Debbie Kong. Debbie is an Information Architecture specialist. Normally for a site my size, bringing in someone like Debbie is expensive and probably over-kill, but she did me a huge favor by doing this for me.
Of course she started by asking me some of the same questions that I ask my clients when beginning the design process. For me, this part was harder than I expected. It’s one thing to ask these questions and have insight on someone else’s business – it’s entirely different when it’s your own!
- Who is your audience? My audience is small business owners and more and more these days, graphic designers and small agencies that want me to do WordPress themes and/or development (coding) for them.
- What do you want the user to do? Well, hire me of course! I also am a big fan of educating the small business owner, so I’d really like them to attend one of my seminars and read more as well.
On the next step of this journey, we’ll look at the solutions that Debbie came back with.
