Three universal filters for designing user-friendly directory structures

The logical structure of the site is a map on which users lay routes to achieve their goals.

In the literature on interaction design, much attention is paid to the visual component of the project and the process of creating an information architecture is practically not considered. In this article, I bring to your attention a simple algorithm for creating a user friendly product catalog structure.


The convenience of future navigation depends on answers to a number of questions:

  • What sections should be in the product catalog and why?
  • What sections of the catalog will be landing pages, and what are the conversion routes for visitors?
  • Can the same product be in several sections of the catalog at the same time?

It is better to start designing the directory structure by defining variables that affect the effectiveness of future navigation. For a product catalog, these variables are:

  1. range;
  2. custom mental models;
  3. specificity of search queries.


Assortment of goods



The starting point in developing a directory structure is an assortment of products. In some cases, to create a catalog is much less common than many developers and owners of online stores would like to group products according to a certain criterion.
The trouble is that the same products can be grouped according to completely different criteria.

Take paint and varnish products as an example. The following criteria are acceptable for grouping products into categories:

  • type of surfaces to be painted (wood, metal, concrete, etc.);

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  • base (emulsion, alkyd and so on);

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  • use cases (external and internal);



  • purpose (paints for bath, bath, nursery, kitchen, wallpaper, ceiling);

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  • brand.

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Which option will be more understandable and convenient for your users? Without the use of a second filter (custom views on the classification) answer to this question is not found.

Custom Mental Models


User representation of goods - the second filter (after the assortment) used in the design of the structure of the catalog of goods.

What users think of your products is much more important than what you think of them. The classification of goods, which coincides with the mental model of users, provides maximum efficiency.

It should be remembered that different segments of customers may perceive the same products differently. In this case, you should focus on the most promising group. Let's see how this works in our example with paints. Among the buyers of paints, we conditionally distinguish 3 segments:


We communicate with the client and find out that the 2nd segment of buyers is the most attractive for business. We stop at it.

An ideal example of the understanding of its users is demonstrated by Adidas.


Clothing is grouped by users' mental models. Own (internal) classification of products is presented, but not imposed.

Methods for obtaining information about user criteria


To obtain information on custom criteria for product classification, you can use interviews with users or sellers of the company, as well as an analysis of classification trends in the study area.

Interviews with users, a survey of sellers

Interviews with potential users of the catalog can be both the easiest and most difficult way to obtain the necessary information. It is very important not to impose your opinion on the user, but to hear it.

Wrong:
“What is the best way to group these goods: by type of surfaces to be painted (wood, metal, concrete, etc.); basis (acrylic, alkyd and so on); use cases (external and internal); cost (budget, middle segment, premium) or brand? ”

We impose on the user a choice of their classification options. We do not want to hear about the classification criteria that the user has.

Correct:
“Distribute these products into groups. Name the groups. "

In the last formulation, many will find parallels with the well-known card method and will be absolutely right.

Communicating with sellers also gives a good idea of ​​user selection criteria.

Analysis of regional leaders and competitors

An analysis of leaders and competitors is used to identify general trends in product classification. There is a fairly high probability that the general trend reflects the views of most users. Although in highly specialized topics, trends may be the result of blind copying of a ready-made solution to an individual company.

The structure resulting from the analysis of user preferences needs final adjustment based on the statistics of search engines.

Search specifics



The final wording of the names of sections and categories of goods is chosen by analyzing the popularity and competition of search queries.

Sections grouped by one criterion can be named differently. Statistics of search requests popularity wordstat.yandex.ru allows you to choose the most popular language for SEO optimization, without which unfortunately many shops can not do.

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