Advana Mega Menu Research Effort

Members of the Advana Integrated Customer Experience (ICX) are investigating Advana users reactions and thoughts regarding the new Advana website information architecture redesign. The goal of this project is to gather user feedback on the newly designed information architecture for the Advana website and provide recommendations and feedback for the designers and owners of Advana as well as use the insight gathered to develop empathy maps and additional personas.

This project took place over two months in late 2021.

This is a research project following the redesign of the Advana Website. The client is the Department of Defense data analytics product, Advana. To learn more about Advana, click here. As the Advana platform has proprietary government information, details of this effort cannot be disclosed.

I am one of three researchers on the project. As the lead researcher, I am responsible for sifting through notes, creating key insights, developing deliverables, etc. I am also the main interviewer for this project. I report to the team lead who is the owner of the project and have another teammate who helps take notes, schedule interviews and facilitate user testing.

The current information architecture on the Advana website is in need of updating. While the design worked well for users as a smaller scale project, Advana has grown exponentially since the first iteration. Currently, there is direct access to numerous applications, does not include links to various community spaces, and does not include much-needed overview pages, leading to confusion among users.

The newly designed mega menu will update the overall information architecture, include overview pages/access to community spaces, remove direct access to applications and introduce users to a beta version of the new Enterprise Analytics Hub.

A research plan and facilitation guide was developed for use during user interviews.

The interview script consisted of general user questions, such as the participants’ title, role, etc as well as more targeted questions regarding Advana use. Three usability tests are conducted during the interview, each to test a new feature of the website redesign. The end of the interview goes over likes and dislikes and has the user make comparisons between the old design and the new designs.

13+ interviews were conducted over the course of 1 month, with an even mix of highly active users and limited users.

The synthesis of data was then conducted to pull out key insights as well as recommendations for changes needed before going live on the website.

Final deliverables include empathy maps, developed personas, key insights, and recommended updates to the new website design.

Tools Used:

• Adobe XD

• Mural

• Webex & Teams (Virtual Interviews)

• Microsoft Powerpoint

Research Plan

Interview Script

Usability Tests (3)

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6 Empathy Maps

7 Developed Personas

Full Analysis of Each Interview

14 Key Insights

5 Recommended Changes

Slide Deck Presented to Leadership