A Fistful of Cards…
There are a huge amount of features and functions within Onefill, our shopping app for banking customers. A lot of these elements could conflict with each other if we just dumped them all in, with no consideration of the hierarchical structure of each page. I therefore decided a simple card sorting exercise was needed to help us figure out the hierarchy of the features and functions, and when and where they would appear on any given page.
I got together a couple of the product guys, our marketing comms guru, and our lead developer. I wrote down all of Onefill’s features and functions on different coloured post-it notes (UXers: you should always keep a healthy stash of post-its along with a pencil and notebook. They’re our most important weapon!). I also created a matrix of the current screens.
A robust and healthy session followed, where we placed the post-its within the matrix, argued about the placement, moved them around, argued some more, moved them back, collapsed in a heaving paddy until the post-its were moved again*, put the kettle on for a nice cup of tea, moved the post-its around some more and then all finally agreed on where the features and functions should be placed in the screen matrix.
We then ‘scored’ each feature and function on its importance within the screen matrix. This allowed us to visualise each screen and get a really good handle on what should be where in the final product, either tucked away in a considered menu, or exposed on the page.
I still expect some things to change around as we progress with this build of Onefill, but this card sorting exercise was really useful and helped expose all the features and functions that we need to worry about — and a few that we wasn’t aware of before we started — while also helping us better understand when and where they should be surfaced so the user can enjoy a seamless, easy and quick online shopping experience.
* Some descriptions may, or may not have been exaggerated!
