Charis Books And More Redesign
Restructuring information architecture of a local independent bookstore.
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Online shopping at Charis Books and More has several opportunities for improved user experience. This case study will focus specifically on the insights gained from user interviews and card sorting.
Challenge
The South’s oldest independent feminist bookstore is in need of navigation restructure and an improved online shopping experience.
Solution
Redesign of the site’s information architecture based data collected from user interviews and card sorting.
My Role and Contribution
I was flying solo like Han during this 2-week sprint.
Booklist Breakdown
I wanted to start by examining a few competitors in different markets. It was important to gain a general idea of the industry standard, if any, for small eCommerce book sales. Because of the niche and focus of the content sold at Charis, users need to know where to go if they just want to browse a particular category.
The website’s current navigation presents available titles as booklists rather than distinct categories. It’s also confusing to go to the shop tab and several booklists when the website features its own booklist tab.
The existing navigation structure is clunky and repetitive.
Each colored star highlights an additional dropdown menu within the booklist category, sending the user into cognitive overload.
My first thought is to combine both the shop and booklist tabs to streamline the content, but what do users have to say about the current navigational structure?
Conducting User Interviews
Before breaking down the informational structure of the Charis website, I wanted to gain a better understanding of general user habits when it came to purchasing books online. In addition to answering a series of interview questions, users were given a task to browse the online store and find multiple ways of locating specific products.
Three user interviews were conducted; two in-person and one remotely.
Key Insights
Users want a variety of inventory and categories to browse
Effortless discovery is high on the list of user expectations
Users want the ability to search for books by category without the existing overlap of topics
3 out of 3 users interviewed prefer to listen to audiobooks
“It feels like every step to browse is just an additional step for no reason.”
Meet Persona Dylan
One of the things I love about UX design is connecting a person to a product. Creating this fictional character based on interview synthesis helps to ground me in the human side of the problem. You’ll rarely see a case study from me that doesn’t include some mention of this user base collective.
Meet our user persona, Dylan.
Charis customer user base in the form of a persona.
Preparing a Card Sort
I wanted to understand how users organized categories under the Shop tab and Booklists tab within the navigation rather than specific book titles that may be unfamiliar to them.
I was also curious about how participants grouped categories listed under the Shop tab when mixed in with categories from the Booklists categories.
The first thing I did was list each navigation category and booklist on a card, discovering quite a bit of topic overlap in the process.
Users were asked to sort the cards in a way that makes sense to them.
I assumed the participants I selected for the card sort would have a general idea of booklist terminology, so I didn’t spend a bunch of time explaining what each category meant. If confusion occurred enough times throughout the card sort, that could only lead to further insight about how to structure the navigation moving forward. Game. On.
The Users Have Spoken Sorted
The card sort proved beneficial in not only understanding how users sorted topics, but topics that seemed out of place in the information structure in general.
6 users (4 remote and 2 in person) were asked to participate in the card sort.
Card Sorting Insights
6 out of 6 participants grouped all queer and sexuality studies categories together based on the topic
6 out of 6 participants grouped non-specific booklists under one general booklist category.
5 out of 6 participants grouped all children’s books in their own category.
Of those 5 participants, 4 questioned if some books were geared for children specifically or for parents to discuss with children.
4 out of 6 users grouped abuse and domestic violence as one general category.
4 out of 6 users grouped race issues into its own category.
4 out of 6 users grouped feminism as its own category.
I noticed that all participants categorized topics based on the subject matter rather than the proposed reader demographic.
Zero participants used alphabetization in any of the card sorts even though it is a common theme throughout the current Charis website.
From Navigation Nay to Navigation YAY!
Below is a sitemap I designed of the proposed navigational structure.
Sitemap displaying redesigned navigational structure.
Children and Teens had the most categories and overlap out of all other booklists. I condensed some of the categories to reduce topic overlap and potential cognitive overload.
With 6 out of 6 participants grouping non-specific booklists under one general category, I decided to keep the list separate from the shopping tab for visibility.
I alphabetized the categories listed under the browse tab assuming this would increase scannability for the user.
With more time, I would dove deeper into additional booklists to develop a structure based on product inventory.