Dice has worked as an information architect, content strategist and writer – at Springload, Xero, and as an independent consultant. Right now he’s chuffed to be Optimal Workshop’s resident information architect. Dice is no longer a high-school teacher, although from time to time a former student will still come up and say “Hi, Mr Allardice,” which instantly ages him by at least a decade.
The Ministry for Primary Industry’s (MPI) customers have some of the most varied information needs we’ve seen — possibly the most varied in Aotearoa. How to follow fishing rules when catching snapper on the weekend? What requirements to meet to sell dairy products at a market? How to go about exporting honey to Asia? What funding is available to reforest a lifestyle block? mpi.govt.nz has all the information.But the previous website was dense and complicated, and MPI’s customers were struggling to find the information they needed, often calling the contact centre instead — one of several indicators that people were lost and confused on the website. We were asked to create a new information architecture to help customers find the information they want when they want it. We’ll take you through the tips and techniques we used to create an IA that met a wide variety of user needs. We’ll cover the challenges we faced, what went well, what didn’t go so well, and what we’d do differently next time, including: - how to prioritise very, very diverse audience needs and research these needs using top tasks, card sorts and tree testing- once you understand the audiences’ needs, how do you balance business needs and desires against these? - getting buy-in for proposed changes that go against what business units want — selling an IA story through stakeholder engagement at every level- how design and technical understanding are fundamental to implementing an IA strategy- the role of content design and structured content in supporting IA- what we’d do differently next time, especially when it comes to making more change through content workflow and governance.
