Delhi Development Authority
Information Architecture Redesign
Disseminating the Elements of Pre-Attentive Processing:
Understanding Visual Perception through Psychophysics and the Neural Processing Mechanisms
Disseminating the Elements of Pre-Attentive Processing:
Understanding Visual Perception through Psychophysics and the Neural Processing Mechanisms
Delhi Development Authority
Information Architecture Redesign
The DDA develops and manages land resources for the city. Its site has outgrown its existing structure with its multiple departments feeding content directly into the main site. The process of finding information on the website is currently a daunting task.
The project's goal was to improve the website's search ability by reorganising its information architecture.
Role
Information Architect
User Researcher, UX Designer
Methods
Card Sorting, Interviews, Expert Review
Tools
OW - Optimal Sort,
Figma
Context
Delhi Development Authority (DDA) is a government agency responsible for developing and managing government-owned land resources for Delhi, India. The website provides information concerning land use and ownership managed by by DDA's 19 sub-departments. The DDA also builds affordable housing stock for the city and serves as a community facilitator by gathering citizen feedback w.r.t public services and informs the public about intermittent changes to land use (residential, commercial, industrial, etc.) and policy.
Problem Statement
The DDA site has outgrown its existing structure with its 19 sub-departments and their micro-sites feeding content directly into the main site. Currently, navigating the website to find relevant information is a daunting task for the users. This can be attributed to:
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Lack of hierarchy: No distinction between information related to citizens (payments, grievances) vs. information for professionals (land, policy and guidelines).
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Unclear site structure and repetitive links: The information layout is not intuitive for the users. All the information is mixed up, i.e, information on housing, payments, property are all provided as buttons on the homepage and repeats multiple times.
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All the elements are competing for attention: Lack of clear information architecture and excessive feeds on the homepage reduces the legibility of the content.
My Role
This was an individual project, my role was as a UX designer and an Information architect. I was involved in each stage of the project, namely:
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Defining the users, redesign goals
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Expert review of the current site
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Field interviews
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Card Sorting
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Redesign of:
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Site map
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Page layouts
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Wireframing
A glimpse: Current Vs. future redesigned state
The following two images show the current home page and the future redesigned page.
The user research led to defining two user groups:
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Group I-Citizens/ novice user group who wish to accomplish tasks such as housing search, bill payments, booking facilities etc.
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Group II-Professionals (architects, urban planners) who seek details on organisational and legal concerns.
Thus the re-design provides:
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Concise task related information for User group I/citizens in the utility menu.
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Detailed information on sub-departments for User group II/experts is embedded in a hamburger menu on the top left.
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A minimalistic interface that reduces distraction.
Current home page
Proposed home page
The Process
Defining the Users
User Group II: Urban Planning professionals, architects, real estate personnel, students access the platform for information regarding land ownership, land use status, latest notifications provided by DDA's 19 sub-departments.
User Group I: City residents access the website for basic information on housing, payments, and property. It should be available upfront.
Next steps
Field interviews: I conducted two interviews:
Expert Review: I conducted an expert review of the site to identify the usability issues, define the impediments in communicating the information effectively, and opportunities for improvement.
First with an urban planning expert, to understand how she navigates the site for search for information.
Second with a city resident, I attempted to understand how he uses the website to find relevant information for his neighborhood and other public services.
Icons source: undraw/illustrations
Documented the existing site map
The next steps involved documenting the existing site map.
Redesign Goals
Re-design the Information architecture segregated for 2 key users groups focusing on their tasks:
Card Sorting: A card sort was conducted using Optimal Workshop's Optimal sort to guide the information architecture redesign.
The next steps involved developing a scenario, to test the current user journey vs the new user journey.
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Citizens/ Novice Users
Find affordable housing
Pay bills
Apply for membership to community sports club
Book community hall for a wedding
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Professionals/ Expert Users
Find department specific information
Check recent updates to building bye-laws
Check the organisation structure
Find contact information of a department officer
Scenario
Shanu is a receptionist at a Nursing home, living in New Delhi for the past 8 years, with her husband and daughter in an apartment on rent.
She is considering buying a house, but only if the sky-rocketing property prices were within her reach. She recently heard about the Delhi Development Authority's (DDA) affordable housing scheme during a conversation with her colleagues. She wishes to apply for a one-room apartment.
Task: Search and apply for a one-room apartment
Image source: Vectorstock.com
Current User Journey
The current journey involves the following 8 steps:
Step 1: 6 labels are relevant to housing search
Step 2: Relevant search results for 6 labels
Step 3:User selects 'Housing' tab
Step 4: User selects ‘online instant booking’
Step 5: User selects 'online running scheme'
Step 6: User selects 'search for a specific locality '
Step 7: User selects ‘flat selection’ and ‘view layout’
Step 8: User selects apartment layout
Documented the site map
Existing site map: It involved providing all links directly on the homepage
Future site map
Future site map
Organised the content into two segregated categories based on:
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Citizen centric: Offering services, interactive information, notifications.
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Department information: Offers detailed information on organisation division into sub departments provides consolidated information to citizens that can be easily understood via minimalistic layout, remove distraction
Initial sketch: Homepage Redesign
Final Design: Key Decisions
1. Homepage
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Minimalistic layout to reduce distractions
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Created hierarchy for 2 user groups:
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Citizen related tasks
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Department related information
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Combined the associated functions to remove repetition. Restricted the number of items in the utility navigation to 5, to reduce cognitive load
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Provided information on the organisational structure on the homepage, with images and contact details, to promote trust and transparency with the management.
Hamburger menu
Proposed home page layout
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2. Utility menu
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Consolidated information for primary users
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Chunked the frequent tasks, and created 'labels' to create information scent
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Created a clear hierarchy
3. Product page (Housing page)
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Educate and inform the user about the steps in the journey in a sequential approach
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Provided all related information required to book an apartment within the same product page, such as:
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Type of housing
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Locality
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Number of rooms
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Cost calculator
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House layout
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View on Google maps
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Challenges and Limitations
During the project various challenges and limitations arose such as:
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No access to subject matter experts: While working on the future site map its was challenging to organize and categorise the department (eg. Land) information without any feedback from subject-matter experts.
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Limited access to Optimal Card Sort: As we were using student version of this tool, the card sort feature was limited to 20, and thus it was a challenge to get an accurate feedback.
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Lack of user testing: Due to limited duration of the project, there was limited time and resources to conduct testing.
Results and Next Steps
By restructuring the site, I learned the value of:
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Structure and categorization to simplify a large content
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Understanding the users and their needs to provide a quick and easy way to access information.
To continue this project, some next steps would include:
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Evolving the site map and designing the product pages for distinct categories.
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Designing the complete experience for a transaction- from initiation to payment and completion.
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Collecting user feedback through usability testing and uncovering user issues