Ontario.ca IA and search

Improve IA (information architecture) and search so that people can find what they need faster and easier.
Sector

Government

Organization

Ontario Digital Service

Designers

Lucia Hsieh, Sharon Lam (UX), Antoinette Di Michele (content), Jamie Wei (UX)

My role

I was responsible for the entire system development process from user research such as interviews, card sorts, and tree tests, to mapping out content structures and prototyping navigational components.

Release date

Ongoing

Cover photo by Luisa Brimble on Unsplash

We research and set standards for

Labels

How we write and structure content such as:

  • titles
  • ledes (summary of page)
  • headings
  • links

Structures

How we categorize, create relationships and present content such as:

  • taxonomies and hierarchies
  • hyperlinks
  • organization schemes

Navigation

How we browse for information such as:

  • menus
  • breadcrumbs
  • headers
  • footers

Search

How we find information such as:

  • search interface (search bar and results)
  • query builders (spell checks, autosuggestions)
  • filters and facets

User goals

As a user of ontario.ca, I need to:

  • land on the page I need or want the first time
  • trust the content I find
  • know what options are available to me

So that I can:

  • complete my task
  • answer the questions I had
  • discover relevant information that I didn’t know about
  • have reassurance that I had all the information I need
As our fairy tales suggest, getting lost is a bad thing. It is associated with confusion, frustration, anger and fear.
— Louis Rosenfeld, Peter Morville and Jorge Arango. Information Architecture for the Web and Beyond (4th edition).

How users browse for programs and services

We’ve conducted research sessions to learn how people of Ontario would categorize programs and services (such as renewing driver’s licence, applying for student loan, or registering a business).

We discovered that users:

  • usually organize services by topic such as driving, health, or travel.
  • may sometimes organize services by role such as seniors, students, or parents.
  • rarely organize services by region such as Northern, Central, or Southwestern Ontario.
  • do not organize services by ministry or government body such as ServiceOntario, Ministry of Transportation, or Consumer Protection.

The findings guide how we structure content on ontario.ca.

Ongoing research activities

How IA supports productivity and efficiency

Takeaways

  • Standards, systems and training are more important for our team than categorizing each content on ontario.ca, as this can help us scale faster and better.
  • There are many components to IA that impact each other and it can be very overwhelming as we work. Rather than focusing on one thing at a time, we document our ideas as we come across insights.
  • There is a lot of government content to organize as it encompasses everything from birth to death. We constantly have to limit our scope and implement in small cycles to move ahead.
  • Good IA is not possible without collaborating with stakeholders, teams, and user research.
  • There is no such thing as “perfect” when it comes to IA as we all interpret information differently. To keep the momentum going, we aim for “good enough” and allow room for modification when needed.