Portfolio
Twelve Companies, One Shared Product Logic
A subscription platform brought distributors and manufacturer partners together under cooperative ownership. That gave several organisations a legitimate stake in how the product was structured. I designed and facilitated the process for turning their perspectives into a shared information architecture, then testing whether people could actually navigate it. Internal agreement was a necessary milestone, with a separate question still to answer: would the structure work for users?
Process
Phase 01
Set up the decision process
I mapped the stakeholders and designed the workshops around the problem space. The sessions needed to make differences workable and produce material from which an actual architecture could be developed.
Phase 02
Give priorities a tangible form
Across six workshops, more than 20 people worked on both the broad product categories and the information within them. A book-cover exercise imposed useful limits: what deserves the spine, what must fit on the cover, and what belongs in the supporting detail?
Phase 03
Turn workshop material into a model
I synthesised the workshop outputs into an information architecture, navigation and page structure. The resulting proposal gave the group one coherent model to inspect, test and refine.
Phase 04
Test where people expect to find things
We developed task scenarios with the stakeholders and tested the proposed hierarchy with 20 participants. Their routes through the tree exposed expectations that the workshop process had not captured.
Phase 05
Let the findings change the proposal
I translated the findings into architectural changes and presented the implications to the stakeholders. The final structure incorporated what the business needed to communicate and what the test had revealed about navigation.
Methods
Surface the competing categories
Sorting made relationships and competing categorisations visible. The specialists’ perspective was then complemented by a separate test of findability.
Use constraints to discuss hierarchy
The spine, cover and back of a book gave priority discussions a practical constraint. There was only so much room for everything to be essential.
Evaluate the structure on its own
Tree testing examined the hierarchy without visual styling, yielding evidence for specific structural changes.
Facilitate across organisational boundaries
Facilitation kept different interests engaged in a shared proposal. Test findings provided another reference point when the group revisited its decisions.
Outcome
The deliverable comprised an information architecture, navigation and page structure, revised through tree-test findings and aligned with the stakeholders. I carried the work from workshop design and facilitation through synthesis, evaluation and finalisation. It established a tested basis for subsequent development; post-launch adoption and commercial impact are outside the evidence available for this case.