Education Resource for Mental Health

My project was to create an education resource to inform users about a mental disorder called maladaptive daydreaming. During this project I used information architecture concepts to create the education resource. The first part of the project was to set up a faceted inventory filled with resources on the mental disorder. The faceted inventory aimed to educate users about the different aspects of the disorder and to help users gain a better understanding of what maladaptive daydreaming is.

The facet structure created can easily help users locate items and is organized by different aspects of the disorder, this makes information seeking easier since users will know which item to click on for specific information. The facet structure also allows users to prioritize the information they want to find, for example if a user only wants to look at causes for the disorder they can do that without interruption from other facets. This makes information finding efficient and pleasant.  

The next part of the project was to run a card sort. A card sort helps understand how participants would group pieces of information. A card sort aims to create an information architecture that fits the user’s expectations.

One thing I noticed from my card sort is that the way the participants organized the content is similar to how I organized it in my facetted inventory. There were many categories that my participants and I agreed on.  However, many new categories were created by the participants. I realized the facets I created were insufficient in representing the items in my inventory. I used the information provided from the card sort to organize my items into the new facets effectively. This new facet structure represents the different areas of maladaptive daydreaming clearly and concisely. These new facets are also mutually exclusive which makes information-seeking an easier task.

 After running the card sort, I needed to run a tree test. Tree tests assess hierarchal category structure, it involves creating tasks for users that involve finding specific pieces of information within the wireframe of a website.

 I created two user tasks. Users mainly had trouble with task one where users had difficulty with immediately choosing the right path to get to the information they wanted. I decided for the final website a guide would be useful for improving the navigation and helping users achieve task one. A guide explains how to use the site and navigate the different levels. Overall, the information gathered from the tree test helps to create a better information resource.