FoodPrint

Redesigning the information architecture of an ongoing project and improving its design and decision-making processes.

The Challenge:

GRACE Communications Foundation came to our team with the idea of creating a website that educates consumers on the social and environmental impacts of what they eat and how food is produced. The website would feature new food articles, as well as content from two soon-to-be-decommissioned websites, sustainabletable.org and gracelinks.org.

As the UX designer on the team, I could see that the website — cleverly named FoodPrint — would need an easily understandable information architecture for the trove of existing food-related content.


Results:

  • Sitemap with comprehensible nomenclature

  • WordPress and design production structure

  • Content strategy workflow

  • Cleaner navigation


Sitemap

 

 

IA for WordPress

Content strategy framework

 

 

New navigation

 

Some of the many wireframes I designed for this project

 

How I did it:

To gain an understanding of the types of food-related content that would be featured on FoodPrint, I reviewed the sustainabletable.org and gracelinks.org websites with editorial documentation as my guide.

The project had no time or budget allocated to user research, so I decided that the best way to create the information architecture would be to combine marketing and design team collaboration with usability best practices.

After reviewing the websites, I brought together the marketing and FoodPrint design team for a content strategy workshop. After walking the teams through best practices for information architecture, user experience, and content strategy, we collectively developed a sitemap for FoodPrint.

In the end, my design process and methods, as well as leadership during the workshops resulted in a comprehensible website organization delivered with fast turnaround and minimal resource investment. Design and decision-making processes were improved too.