Fixing Fisheries
Testing and developing information architecture for the Canadian government.
Role
Year
2025
01 • THE BOTTOM LINE
Finding information shouldn’t feel like walking in a maze.
For this project, my team was tasked to redesign the information architecture of the Fisheries section of the Government of Canada's Fisheries and Oceans website. We used multiple research methods to test and improve the IA, such as card sorting and tree testing. Our final prototype consisted of over 5 pages of wireframes, showing an efficient way to organize the site's content.
SKILLS DEVELOPED
02 • THE ORIGINAL SITE
Getting to know Fisheries
After exploring the site, we concluded that our target users are people with exploratory needs searching for information about licenses, policies, fishery management, and environmental influences.
Some users include:
Users looking to obtain commercial/recreational fishing licenses
Users looking for policies on fishing recreationally or commercially fishing
Users looking for policies on fishing recreationally or commercially fishing
We mapped the site and found duplicate content across multiple locations, pages that redirected users to the homepage after several clicks, and numerous broken or outdated links. These inconsistencies created unnecessary frustration and made it difficult for users to find information efficiently.
Levels:
1
2
3
4
5
Broken link
Problems
03 • OPEN CARD SORTING
Testing labels through an open card sort.
Users
7
Age
20-30
Across the study, participants created more than 30 unique category labels. We found that participants were more likely to group labels that contained similar or identical terminology. Otherwise, our card sort showed little to no correlation, except for a few labels that were paired.
SIMILARITY MATRIX
DENDROGRAM
04 • TREE TESTING
Users
15
Age
20-30
After developing and testing our initial labels, we wanted to understand whether the overall site structure made sense to users. We focused on testing areas where information overlapped, as these sections were most likely to confuse the user.
KEY TAKEAWAYS:
TEST 1
TEST 3
04 • RECOMMENDATIONS
We recommend three things to improve the IA of the site.
Have pages exist in multiple parts of the website.
Our tree testing revealed that users often took different pathways to complete the same task, suggesting that content is relevant to multiple areas of the site. Placing key pages in multiple appropriate locations lets users reach information more directly without backtracking.
SITEMAP REDESIGN
Create an understandable and consistent organization of information
