Explore updating left navigation for Research and design Platform section

claytonzook commented 2 years ago

User Story

"As a VFS teammate, I want to easily find I want to easily find important Research and Design guidance, so that I have quick access to the information that's important to me."

"As a platform team member, I want to be able to easily navigate to pages relevant for my practice area when I'm supplying links to answer questions"

Intended Audience: VFS teams
Desired Outcome: Easier to find information and to navigate on Platform's Research and design section
Due Date:

Description

Current state of Research and design section of platform, the left side navigation mostly links research pages which are mostly at level 1. This means there are a lot of links to look through to find to most relevant page, and it lends itself to categorizing.

change option 1 - have left nav include a link to a page for each practice area. This will allow each practice area to better organize their information, and will be easier for VFS members to find needed information.

change option 2 - keep the links as currently there, research heavy, but group closely related items of research

New Artifacts

Artifacts Potentially / Confirmed Needing Updates

Platform area landing page for Research and Design
- Changes for which are made on the Research and Design Confluence page

Tasks

[x] Consult with Content/IA team to understand the guidance on these sections' main pages and the navigation links
[x] Consult with Clayton on modifications to Research and Design area page and left nav links that could make content easier to find
[x] Conduct research including a Card Sort or Tree Test to discover and validate the best way to organize the information contained in this area

Acceptance Criteria

[x] Updated left nav organization for Platform: Research and design guide has been captured and documented
[x] Proposed solution has been discussed by Platform team stakeholders
[x] Edits by Platform team stakeholders have been incorporated into revised spreadsheet.
[x] Proposed solution is ready to format for next-stage usability testing

Related Governance Team Resources

For additional information and guidance to complete tasks, please see links below. Documentation Update Guidance for GitHub templates
Documentation Update Guidance for Platform Website pages
Documentation Update Guidance for Confluence pages
Guidelines for Governance Team Confluence Space
Guidelines for Platform Products and Services Confluence Space
Description of Platform Website spaces and content

How to configure this issue

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shiragoodman commented 2 years ago

@naomimarcussen let's talk about this when you're back in the office :)

@claytonzook thank you for writing this up!

naomimarcussen commented 2 years ago

This is great @claytonzook! We definitely need to update this section. @shiragoodman I'm back for now. I'd love to talk about this. If you schedule a meeting we can always reschedule if things change with my availability.

claytonzook commented 2 years ago

copy/pasted from ticket 39472

claytonzook commented on Apr 12 After thinking about this more and after talking with the Content/IA team

I've changed this ticket to focus on the Research and design section and taken out the Collab Cycle section Content/IA team verified that there was no present objection with our area pages including content along with the links, differing from the other 4 main area pages that just have links and no content. Content/IA team agreed that the next steps for this would be research to further consider and validate best way forward on nav link changes.

claytonzook commented 2 years ago

@jimuhh Tagging you here for your expertise on this ticket

shiragoodman commented 2 years ago

just my 2 cents, I think change option 2 makes more sense as I don't really see anything currently in the left nav that is practice-area specific. My advice would be to organize by phase of research with a dedicated section for the Overview. The phases can be Preparing for Research, During Research and Post Research (or other names as appropriate). I'd still like to hear @jimuhh's opinion though.

Keep in mind that we won't be doing research to determine the best left nav organization, however we should be making an assumption of how we think VFS researchers use this page, and implementing an organization based on that. If/when this section of Platform Website continues to grow and the organization model we've implemented is no longer sufficient, then we may do research at that time to determine how better to organize the left nav.

claytonzook commented 2 years ago

@shiragoodman Thinking about this more, I agree with your assessment on option 2. Although I do feel weird about the left nav links being focused on research since the content of this page covers so much more than that.

Thinking through option 1 at little more - similar to how we have been moving remaining research area GH docs to Platform creating this left nav problem, some GH docs for other practice areas could benefit from that move as well. So this is definitely more of a solution to a problem we don't currently have, but I'd still hope that we have down the road.

RE research, I would be remiss if I didn't say I think we should research. But I think we can discuss further elsewhere to better effect.

naomimarcussen commented 2 years ago

@claytonzook and @shiragoodman I think we eventually want to move toward option 1, but proceeding with option 2 in the meantime will be a good first step. I'd like to gather Governance folks for a workshop where we work to create a plan toward that goal.

jimuhh commented 2 years ago

@shiragoodman, @claytonzook @naomimarcussen Here's a draft revised navigation based on the card sort results. I'd like to tree test it to make sure it's good enough.

jimuhh commented 2 years ago

Some of the nav items:

Best practice: Focus management
Best practice: Accessible links
Best practice: Buttons vs Links

Seem out of place in this nav schema. Any chance we can relocate them?

jimuhh commented 2 years ago

Also, I don't see any reason to call this section "Research and design" since it's mainly about research and there's plenty of design content elsewhere.

naomimarcussen commented 2 years ago

@jimuhh The intention is for this section to house information for doing both research and design. At the moment we only have documentation available for research.

shiragoodman commented 2 years ago

@naomimarcussen I didn't know that! but if that's the case, then I'm supportive of keeping the name (although I do agree with Jim).

@jimuhh re: your question about the out of place "Best practice" links. I agree. They do seem out of place, especially since this page is currently focused on Research. @claytonzook - do you think these 3 pages make sense under the Research and Design tile? I'm not sure I see the direct connection between accessibility best practices and conducting research. Maybe we should relocate to the Accessibility Testing page, for now.

shiragoodman commented 2 years ago

I also like your proposed navigation, however I would like @naomimarcussen and @claytonzook to weigh in.

jimuhh commented 2 years ago

@naomimarcussen Thanks for clarifying. I'm concerned that by if we put the design content in there as planned, we couldn't properly separate it out from research stuff without using a "narrow but deep" navigation schema in which "Design" and "Research" were each 2nd level nav items with lots of nested links like so:

Design and Research
- Design
  - many sub-navs...
  - multiple sub-sub navs
- Research
  - many sub navs...
    - multiple sub-sub navs
    - etc.

Unfortunately, narrow and deep is not the approved VA nav pattern.

claytonzook commented 2 years ago

@shiragoodman @jimuhh @naomimarcussen My hot take: As Jim mentioned, split by practice area was the best way I could think of to separate out the left nav for this section as still called "research and design" that also includes all practices as currently presented on the main landing page.

Since we've been adding a lot of content on the research side, that's sort of taken over this section of the site, even though that wasn't the intent. My understanding for the now, was that we wanted for research not to dominate the left nav, so we wanted to combine items, but if we instead put everything we currently have, as listed, under a research nav, there would only be 2 sub navs. I wonder if that would help the the VA approved navigation patterns enough? And secondly, I take it then those approved patterns aren't just for va.gov but carry over to Platform?

jimuhh commented 2 years ago

@claytonzook Given that we can't change this page without reworking the platform home page, which might be a lengthy discussion, I think we can probably get away with separating out the practice areas here tho' it's far from ideal. You're right that there aran't a lot of 4th level pages in the current research schema. Hopefully that will also apply to the proposed design navs as well.

jimuhh commented 2 years ago

@claytonzook @naomimarcussen @shiragoodman but it we do bifurcate the leftnav by practice area as described, we should do it from the git-go, even if design content isn't yet in place. Otherwise, we're going to be moving a lot of content down in the hierarchy later on, which could get confusing.

jimuhh commented 2 years ago

See where the "architecture" part comes in? You plan to remodel one room and suddenly you're moving retaining walls and pulling out plumbing.

shiragoodman commented 2 years ago

@jimuhh what are you proposing the left Nav look like if we organize by practice area? I personally don't agree with including a "design" level 1 if there's nothing to link there. However, I still curious what this would look like.

Below is what I propose. The only thing I changes was the level 1 titles to indicate "research." Also i added "How to use zoom for user research" into the "Conducting Sessions" bucket.

Level 1	Level 2
Research: Overview
	Research Overview
	Observer Guidelines
	Pilot participant guidelines
Research: Planning and recruiting
	Planning research
	Research Checklist
	Planning Moderated studies
	Planning Unmoderated studies
	Recruiting participants
Research: Conducting sessions
	Safety and Emergency Exit
	Tech set-up checklist
	Testing with screen readers
	Recording research sessions
	How to use zoom for user research
Research: iPhone and Android sessions
	iPhone: Start screen share
	iPhone: Stop screen share
	iPhone: Screen recording set-up
	iPhone: Access chat
	Android: Start screen share
	Android: Stop screen share
	Android: Share device audio

Please let me know your thoughts. If we want to add Design, we can always add a "Design" level 1, however I don't see the need at this time.

jimuhh commented 2 years ago

@shiragoodman I had considered this approach and it may turn out to be the best available solution, but it does break the expected nav pattern:

Category (e.g. Design)
- Item (e.g. using the design system)

Putting categories at the Item level increases cognitive load by making users read each item to figure out its category instead of just looking at the bucket it's in.

This might also result in a very long leftnav if and when the promised design content shows up. Also, by adding the "Research" and "Design" modifiers to nav items we'd be breaking our own rule about matching nav labels with the H1 of target pages and making each nav item a longer read. Adding the category and colon to our existing breadcrumb pattern, which is based on the category/item hierarchy, would also represent a significant change. Thoughts?

jimuhh commented 2 years ago

On second thought, there are only 4 1st level categories in this layout, so while I don't love ganging up categories in item-level labels, we could probably add the same number for the new design content without overcrowding the nav. And I also found there's precedent for the colon pattern in breadcrumbs on FAQ pages so we can get away w/ this.

shiragoodman commented 2 years ago

@jimuhh right now, there's 12 1st level categories, so I think a max of 8 wouldn't be too cumbersome. I'd like to loop in Shane to get his opinion since Clayton is out of office. Could you put together a finalized design to share with Shane (and Naomi too) for their review and hopefully approval?

jimuhh commented 2 years ago

@shiragoodman sure. I'll just add that to the existing spreadsheet.

jimuhh commented 2 years ago

@shiragoodman, @shanemelliott, @naomimarcussen Here is the revised nav layout with "Research:" added to top level items. The idea is that when design content becomes available, we'll treat it the same way, with several categorized top level navs that expand on click to show subnavs like this:

Design: Using the design system
- Intro to design system
- Foundations, Components and Patterns
- etc.
- etc.

jimuhh commented 2 years ago

@shanemelliott, @naomimarcussen LMK if you have any questions/concerns.

naomimarcussen commented 2 years ago

Thank you for organizing this! I like this approach. It got me thinking:

Is there a reason you pulled out just the "Observer guidelines" and "Pilot participant guidelines"?
In the "Research: Planning and recruiting" section, what is the difference between Planning research and the checklist.
We have headers for only part of the process and I fear people won't see what we want them to do to share their findings. What if we add "Synthesize and Share" as the last header so it reads as a full process?
Breaking it out by a process has me wondering if breaking out the "Research checklist" into smaller parts and have that at the top of each section is a way to connect the processes and resources we have there with other supporting content. I'm sure there are better ways to name these though. What do you think?
As for the zoom, iPhone and Android pages, we could move the zoom header into the "Conducting sessions" section. Then, what if we organize the rest by mobile and assistive technology?
I added another tab to the spreadsheet to sketch out my thoughts.

For another ticket: In addition to the research and design sections, we also need a "Getting started" section that has all the info we provide in our orientation deck like:

Who we are
How to contact us
How we collaborate with links to design office hours and the weekly design meeting
Design principles
Overview of our UX process

shiragoodman commented 2 years ago

@jimuhh looks like you tagged the wrong Shane! no worries, it happens. FYI @sstrassberg

jimuhh commented 2 years ago

Hi @naomimarcussen. I'll do my best to address each point you raised. Some of these answers will be kinda involved, so I'll do that in separate comments herer.

Is there a reason you pulled out just the "Observer guidelines" and "Pilot participant guidelines"?
- Yes. Most card sort participants grouped those together under a category name that indicated they saw them as belonging to general research guidelines.

jimuhh commented 2 years ago

Hi @naomimarcussen. More answers.

In the "Research: Planning and recruiting" section, what is the difference between Planning research and the checklist.
- Good question. If the concern is whether they should be rolled together, I can't say. The ask on this project was to rework the leftnav, using the content that's there already.
- Questions about what pages should be there and/or what content they should feature, though totally valid, are better decided with a content inventory and audit, which weren't in scope for this ticket.

jimuhh commented 2 years ago

Hi @naomimarcussen. Herewith...

We have headers for only part of the process and I fear people won't see what we want them to do to share their findings. What if we add "Synthesize and Share" as the last header so it reads as a full process?
- I would totally endorse that.
- AFAIK, the source content that people card-sorted wasn't originally intended to represent an end-to-end process, but now that we're pretty sure we'd like it to, it makes total sense to add new categories and content to accomplish that.

jimuhh commented 2 years ago

Hi @naomimarcussen. continued...

Breaking it out by a process has me wondering if breaking out the "Research checklist" into smaller parts and have that at the top of each section is a way to connect the processes and resources we have there with other supporting content. I'm sure there are better ways to name these though. What do you think?
- I could totally see the value in doing that.
- Even though content inventory/audit weren't part of original scope, it seems the card sort is leading us into those kinds of discussions and decisions, as so often happens. 😁

jimuhh commented 2 years ago

@naomimarcussen and there's more 😁

As for the zoom, iPhone and Android pages, we could move the zoom header into the "Conducting sessions" section. Then, what if we organize the rest by mobile and assistive technology?
- That makes sense to me, but the schema I shared just represents the fact that most people grouped those mobile-related items together as a separate category.
- I honestly don't know if people grouped the mobile tech help content together simply because there was so much of it. All I know is that they did. 🤷‍♂️

jimuhh commented 2 years ago

@naomimarcussen I like your version and I'm glad that these results are prompting some "what ifs." It would be worth our while to turn our current best estimate of what an improved leftnav looks like into a tree test that includes some of the content revisions you suggested. If you like that idea, it would be great to hear some suggestions about task scenarios we might use for testing.

jimuhh commented 2 years ago

@shiragoodman and if @naomimarcussen agrees that we should tree test the new revised nav before implementing, how would you feel about capturing that in a new ticket and closing this one?

shiragoodman commented 2 years ago

@jimuhh this is a lot more time and research that I intended to invest in this ticket, however the plan was to do the research sometime down the road. why not now. I am ok with capturing it in a new ticket.

jimuhh commented 2 years ago

Thanks @shiragoodman! I would have been OK with a slightly re-grouped leftnav for now but based on @naomimarcussen's feedback, it seems like this exercise is raising a lot of legitimate content strategy questions.

jimuhh commented 2 years ago

@shiragoodman. I'm ready to close this now. @naomimarcussen is out this week but that wouldn't stop me from turning her iteration of this nav into a tree test to discuss when she gets back.

shiragoodman commented 2 years ago

@jimuhh can you please update the tasks and AC of this ticket? I want to make sure I know what work was completed in this ticket and what should be moved to #44196. Once that's complete, we can close this out.

jimuhh commented 2 years ago

@shiragoodman Will do. Thx.

jimuhh commented 2 years ago

@shiragoodman -- The only outstanding task is

Ensure no links have been broken in this change ...because obviously that could only happen if the revised nav went to staging, so everything else is OK to close.

I wonder whether we shouldn't break out the final production of leftnav to to the next ticket after #44196 since the tree test on next phase might reveal that our planned nav revision doesn't actually work for users.

shiragoodman commented 2 years ago

thanks, @jimuhh. I will hold off on closing this ticket until #44196 is ready.

shiragoodman commented 2 years ago

hey @jimuhh - sorry, I was reviewing this ticket and it's still not where it needs to be. My 7/12 comment was intended for you to update the tasks and AC with the work that was actually done for this ticket. For example, we did not, "Updated left nav organization for Platform: Research and design guide" so that AC should be removed. What I'd like to have in the AC is what was completed. Possibly, "We have completed a card sort for the existing pages of the left nav." Aside from that, what else did we do?

Let me know if you'd like to meet to discuss.

jimuhh commented 2 years ago

@shiragoodman Ah OK. Thanks for clarifying. I can do that.

jimuhh commented 2 years ago

@shiragoodman OK. I brought the AC in line w/ the revised workflow (how very agile of me! 😀 ) LMK if this works for you.

shiragoodman commented 2 years ago

perfect @jimuhh - thank you!

claytonzook commented 2 years ago

@jimuhh I'm a little late to the party, but my largest concern on the current redo (as listed in https://github.com/department-of-veterans-affairs/va.gov-team/issues/39779#issuecomment-1178163602) is that Research Checklist is a whole end to end research page (ie Overview), but not listed with that grouping. It's an intriguing idea to split this out into multiple checklists, because in reality this checklist is best completed in chunks. To say, I'm along for this ride.

Breaking it out by a process has me wondering if breaking out the "Research checklist" into smaller parts and have that at the top of each section is a way to connect the processes and resources we have there with other supporting content. I'm sure there are better ways to name these though. What do you think?

https://github.com/department-of-veterans-affairs/va.gov-team/issues/39779#issuecomment-1180907167

department-of-veterans-affairs / va.gov-team