GrowNYC Information Architecture
Haimeng Gong
Ben Gross
Chelsea Yip
INFO 643
March 16, 2021
Union Square Greenmarket
Image courtesy Phil Roeder
Executive Summary
In order to determine a new information architecture for the GrowNYC website, we conducted an open card sort exercise with 14 participants. We conducted a hybrid card sort with both moderated and unmoderated sessions.
From the card sort results, we exported each session to Miro to examine grouping patterns. The patterns that emerged combined with observations from participant sessions guided the 3 main findings to the right.
Our resultant information architecture combined learnings from the Miro analysis, Optimal Workshop’s best merge dendrogram, and our main findings.
Finding 1
Niche use of industry synonyms causes confusion.
Finding 2
Current GrowNYC menu categories are too broad, leading to participants splitting categories into several groups.
Finding 3
Cards representing GrowNYC’s key services received the least agreement from participants, suggesting a need to be more clearly defined.
2
GrowNYC Food Box
Image courtesy GrowNYC
Methodology
Card Sort Breakdown
3
Miro board analysis
Methodology - Labels
Label selection started with the base GrowNYC menu structure. Overly specific menu options and options we knew were less trafficked from the client interview were omitted. Some labels were added to compare unique, GrowNYC terms with more general equivalents (such as adding Farmers Market to compare results to Greenmarket).
4
SNAP/EBT
Farmstand
Youth Programs
Food Boxes
Equitable Pricing
Food Retail Location
Recipes
Partner Restaurants
Farmers Market
Greenmarket
Stop and Swap
Greenmarket Bucks
Gift Cards
Trade Home Goods
CSA Boxes
Compost Food Scraps
Recycling
Donate Clothing
Visit a Farm
Market Tour
Green Infrastructure
Rainwater Harvesting
Green Roofs
Green Space
Community Gardens
Wholesale
What's in Season
Farmer Assistance
Zero Waste Schools
Volunteer
Public Events
Contact
Careers
Blog
Student Activities
Distance Learning
Newsletter Signup
Rain Garden
School Gardens
Methodology - Card Sort Results
Results were initially sorted based on the Optimal Workshop dendrogram output using the Best Merge Method. This method provided a great first cut for small n values by visually conveying the percent of participants that agree with parts of the grouping. In the dendrogram shown, 50% of participants agreed with parts of the groupings highlighted. While a lower percentage, this method provided insightful data on grouping patterns with only 14 study participants.
50% Agreement
0% Agreement
5
Methodology - Grouping Refinement
Miro was used to transfer the Optimal Workshop dendrogram results into an editable board for refinement. Participant category names were factored during the process.
Categories were refined into the final site map by weighing initial card sort groupings against a few factors:
6
Finding 1
Niche use of industry synonyms causes confusion
7
Image courtesy GrowNYC
Finding 1
GrowNYC’s use of niche industry terms caused confusion among card sort participants. During moderated card sorts, participants expressed the most confusion over the terms “CSA Boxes”, “Stop and Swap”, and “Greenmarket”, and several paused their sessions in order to search for definitions of these terms externally.
Cards representing commonplace synonyms for these terms performed better and were less likely to be sorted into a miscellaneous or “I don’t know” group. We made the following standardizations in our site map to alleviate confusion:
8
Image courtesy GrowNYC
Greenmarket → Farmers Market
CSA Boxes → Food Boxes
Stop and Swap → Trade Home Goods
Finding 2
Current GrowNYC menu categories are too broad, leading to participants splitting categories into several groups.
9
Finding 2
Based on the results from participants, the cards representing GrowNYC’s “Food Access and Agriculture” and “Conservation” menu categories are scattered. The results suggest that these two categories are too broad and contain too many submenus.
Cards from “Food Access and Agriculture” were commonly split into 3 to 6 groups, such as food, retail, commerce, farmer, activities, or others.
Cards from “Conservation” were split into 2 to 4 groups, including “what you can do at home”, recycling, sustainability, and peasants.
10
Image courtesy GrowNYC
Finding 3
Cards representing GrowNYC’s key services received the least agreement from participants, suggesting a need to be more clearly defined.
11
Finding 3
Based on the dendrograms from participants, “Food Boxes” received the least agreement, garnering only a 36% agreement score. This conflict of agreement indicates the need for further clarity in the definition of the term, as the “Food Boxes” program is one of GrowNYC’s key services, according to a client interview.
Similarly, cards for “Public Events”, “Trade Home Goods”, “Zero Waste School”, “Volunteer”, and “Donate Clothing” also received low agreement scores, demonstrating the overlap between what they can do to live sustainability versus what they expect to be supported via education or community services.
12
Image courtesy GrowNYC
Resources
13