Individual assignment for Monash Bootcamp. Redesign of ATO Website specifically targeting heuristic analysis and navigation. This was my most exciting project during the Monash UX/UI Bootcamp as halfway through the ATO updated their website and a lot of our findings and solutions were similar. Come find out what I found and how I solved it below!
Roles and Responsibilities
Team of 1: Researching, analysing results, ideation, card sorting, heuristic analysis, prototyping and wireframes (lofidelity to high), user testing and iteration.
Deliverables
High Fidelity tested and iterated navigation prototype with full case study.
Timeframe and Scope
4 weeks
Tools
Figma, Figjam
Let's get researching!
Without a problem yet I started by creating a user research plan, the goal was to look at how users navigate and search for information on the ATO website going as broad as possible. I interviewed 5 users and found some surprising results which I put into and affinity map.
Some issues found in user testing included cognitive overload using the global and sub navigation, consistency errors between pages and difficulty using the search function. I then put all of my pain points into a priority matrix. Search functions are an incredibly difficult and complex problem and due to time and financial constraints was deemed to be out of scope.
The problem to solve was reducing cognitive load on the user and align navigation across desktop and mobile!
Let's Ideate!
First step was to perform some card sorting on the current categories and their content!
Through card sorting and a combination of my testing and user research earlier I came up with my solution!
Chunking menus down to reduce the complexity and hopefully cognitive load of the user when navigating, create circumstances for better associative learning and align navigation and menu across desktop and mobile.
I created a new site map for the global nav as seen below. Feeling confident in my solution I started working on a prototype to get in front of users!
Wireframing
I started with lo-fidelity wireframes (as seen below) to get testing as soon as possible!
I tested with 5 users they loved the navigation redesign! My user testing matrix is seen below. Feeling that my initial testing phase was successful I started moving up fidelity!
From here I created a style guide based on blue being a calm colour as tax is a stressful and complex topic I wanted to align our intentions across design and mood; calm.
My final high fidelity prototype is below for desktop and mobile.
I put my final prototype in front of 7 users for any final iterations before the deadline. I found that some of the labelling for the sub nav categories, particularly "key links and information" confused users. I iterated and changed the label to “More information and links”. Users successfully used mobile and desktop navigation but due to reducing complexity of the system it also reduced context for labelling systems.
Conclusion and final thoughts
From user testing I found that the biggest issue facing users was cognitive overload using the main navigation. Using card sorting, IA heuristic analysis and user testing I feel that I was able to create a strong solution that solves the problem I found. During my redesign the ATO also updated their website and did very similar chunking and card sorting with their navigation and IA. Further analysis below.
On the original design (1) the cognitive load is too heavy. I feel confident in my IA decisions (2) as ATO redesign has clearly found similar issues as I did during testing and has a similar structure to my redesign (3.) Examples such as chunking down the business and not for profit catagories however their design is less exploratory and now harder to find the information you were looking for due to removing too much context for the labels.
Next steps
Further card sorting on all labels in each category as when you reduce complexity it can also remove context from labels as found with the “Key links and information” label.
Thank you for reading my case study I hope you enjoyed it as much as I did working on it <3