Whilst working on a pitch for a top London design agency, I was involved with developing a new information architecture for the London 2012 Olympics website.

The work involved reviewing the existing website from an IA, usability, accessibility and user experience perspective and making recommendations of how to improve it.

I worked closely alongside the creative team to ensure the IA vision was delivered and the resulting designs conformed to usability and accessibility best practice.

The result of our combined efforts is a solid pitch document that I hope will win the said agency the contract.

Deliverables

• Usability and accessibility review document
• Sitemap
• Wireframes
• User journeys

I was asked by Bostock and Pollitt to assist them with creating the new information architecture for their client: On the Beach.

At the time of writing, this project is still a work in progress, I am working closely alongside the project management and creative teams to create a collaborative IA. So far I have conducted a user experience and competitor analysis, proposed a new content strategy, sitemap and created the initial top-level wireframes.

Deliverables

• User experience analysis/competitor analysis
• Content strategy
• Content architecture
• User journeys
• Sitemap
• Wireframes

Tools used

• OmniGraffle Professional
• Adobe Illustrator

Following on from the successful delivery of the IA for the Arts Council, Preloaded ask me to conduct a user experience and competitor analysis for a speculative piece of work for Phones 4 u.

As part of the 2 day piece of work, I analysed and documented the elements of user experience for the following websites:

• Phones 4 u
• Dialaphone
• Orange
• O2
• Carphone Warehouse

Deliverables

• User experience analysis/competitor analysis

Tools used

• Adobe Illustrator

Whilst working as a freelance Information Architect at Grand Union I was responsible for developing the new information architecture for the forthcoming redesigned Freeview website. My work included competitor analysis, auditing the existing website and its content and meeting with the client to discuss the needs and objectives of both the business and users.

I delivered a new sitemap and wireframes that incorporated my recommendations for content, layout and technological development. These deliverables were used by both the client and the project team to develop the new site.

Deliverables

• Hierarchical sitemap
• Website audit
• Wireframes

URL: http://www.freeview.co.uk/

I have recently been in discussions with Together London about collaborating with them on forthcoming web projects. The idea behind the company is to put together a team of highly-skilled individuals who work together in a flexible and more efficient way. By being more agile, cutting out a lot of the inefficiencies that occur in larger agencies we can deliver higher quality projects, more quickly and cheaply.

URL: http://www.togetherlondon.com/

Over the past few months Amazon have been tweaking their existing site to improve the design and user experience. They have done a good job, but I couldn’t help but notice that they have only gone half the way to using Web standards in their redesign efforts. Here’s a little (non-exhaustive) summary of what they are missing:

• The HTML isn’t really that semantic, if you remove the style sheet the content doesn’t really flow that well – a(ccessibility barrier to non-graphical browsers)
• No DOCTYPE to inform browsers of what version of HTML they are using
• A huge amount of page specific CSS and JavaScript, could this have been moved into an external file to be reused elsewhere?
• They are STILL using tables for content and page layout – very inflexible, non-semantic and harder to update, increases code to content ratio (lowers SEO – although Amazon are all over SEO)
• Page design doesn’t scale well when you increase the font size
• No use of access keys or tab indexes so a user can’t tab logically through the navigation
• No use of skip to content or skip navigation links

Amazon still provides a great online shopping experience, but you have thought that if they had gone to the trouble of redesigning their site they would have taken a few lessons out of Yahoo’s book and gone down the full Web standards route.

Rated People is an online service to find domestic tradesmen such as plumbers, electricians and builders in your local area. Companies can create a profile on the site and then bid for work. Customers can advertise a job and then get in contact with the appropriate contractor. I was asked to conduct a speculative audit of the site and its key competitor.

Deliverables

• Competitor analysis

Downloads: rated_people_uxp_analysis.pdf

Overview

The London Capital Group wanted to redesign their existing website and part of that process was to create an audit report covering the following areas

• Target audiences
• Analytics and tracking
• Search engine positioning
• Functionality
• Visual design
• Front-end technologies
• Usability
• Accessibility
• Site architecture

Deliverables

• Website audit
• Sitemap
• Homepage content architecture

Client goals

To get a better understanding of how to improve their website and what areas in particular required the most attention.

Challenges overcome

The client was very new to IA and so a lot of hand-holding was required throughout the auditing and recommendation phases. The client was also quite slow to feedback on key deliverables slowing down the project and making it hard to keep momentum going.

Downloads: lcg_website_audit lcg_site_architecture

Overview

Just Giving provides an online platform for charities and fundraisers to donate and raise money for charitable causes. Charities can sign up and accept donations through the site and fundraisers can create a profile to raise money for an event that they are involved with such as running the London Marathon. As part of the move to a new site design I was asked to create a hierarchical sitemap and audit the existing site from an accessibility, usability and design point of view.

Deliverables

• Hierarchical sitemap
• Website audit

Client goals

To audit the existing site and to document any accessibility, usability and design issues.

Downloads: just_giving_site_map

Overview

Capital Spreads is part of the London Capital Group and a provider of online spread betting services. As part of the redesign of their corporate site I was asked to audit the existing site to document any accessibility, usability and information architecture issues.

Deliverables

• Website audit

Client goals

To get a better understanding of any accessibility, usability and information issues with the site prior to launch.