Site IA: review and update

[martinwake]

What

The information architecture (structure) of the Design System website needs to be reviewed and likely updated.

Why

Several recent changes have highlighted this need, including:

• we need to decide where the "Get started" pages should go
• the Team page no longer has updates from individual team members, which means it no longer makes sense for it to sit under "latest updates"
• we are planning to publish update articles and don't have anywhere for these to go

Done when

• Site structure is reviewed and an updated structure agreed

Outcomes

New site structure

Home

Get started
	- For designers
	- For developers
	
Components (alphabetical list)
	- Component 1
	- Component 2
	- Retired components
	
Patterns (alphabetical list)
	- Pattern 1
	- Pattern 2
	- Retired patterns

Community
	- Latest updates
	- Roadmap
	- Backlog
	- Contribute
	- The team

Who needs to know about this

Design System team

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[martinwake]

After reviewing other sites it looked like we could address these issues by

• Merging the Backlog, Contribute and Roadmap sections into one section called "Community"
• Adding a "Get started" section

The main sections would then be:

- Get started
- Components		
- Patterns		
- Community		

This is coincidentally the same as GOV.UK but without the "Styles" section.

I did a quick tree test (https://www.nngroup.com/articles/tree-testing/) on this proposed structure using a free online tool, which had 10 respondents (8 content designers, 2 interaction designers). They also provided freeform comments on the site which are here: #197 (comment)

The test was set up with 3 tasks:

1. You want to find out what new work is planned for the design system. Where can you find this information?
2. You want to suggest a new pattern to be included in the design system. Find out how to do this.
3. You've found a pattern that you want to use in your prototype. Where would you find out how to do this?

10 people took part in the test (8 content designers and 2 interaction designers). The tasks were presented in a random order to counteract the effects of people learning from previous tasks.

The test suggested this slightly revised structure:

Get started
	- For designers
	- For developers
	
Components (alphabetical list)
	- Component 1
	- Component 2
	---
	- Component 3 (retired)
	
Patterns (alphabetical list)
	- Pattern 1
	- Pattern 2
	---
	- Pattern 3 (retired)

Community
	- Roadmap (current)
		○ October 2021
	- Backlog
	- Contribute
	- The team

[martinwake]

Comments from test participants here: #197 (comment)

[martinwake]

Discussed with @simoneduca and made minor changes to how the retired patterns/components are presented. Updated structure in description.