Liferay System Settings
In collaboration with my team for Liferay · 2017
This study was conducted to propose and implement a new information architecture towards a better classification for System Settings.
Moving away from internal Liferay team classification to a natural classification task based where it is more intuitive to find the different configuration elements in the system.
The result of this study is a completely new information architecture build from scratch and validated with user tests through a reverse card sorting.
1.Research
Research was based on interviews to 6 different profiles, including Software Engineer, Software Architect, Security Engineer, Principals in Technical Support, Engineer and Software Engineer, collecting previous information and researching in good practices.
2.Information Architecture
A new information architecture was proposed after 14 iterations with different stakeholders. Definitions for each of the elements and new ways to group the different elements was done with them.
3.Test
A Reverse Card Sorting was the method used to test the proposed IA. Using a navigation tree with our proposed IA we asked participants to find the right place to solve a proposed task in a survey and then we analyzed the results. It is important to remark that the Reverse Card Sorting is made without the help of a visual interface but with a tree similar to a site map.
20 tasks were created to test different parts of the IA proposed. Each participant was asked to answer only 10 tasks that were randomly distributed.
4.Participants
222 participants took the survey.
99 completed the form and 123 abandoned it (most of them in the initial questions).
5.Analysis
The tool used in this test provided us with valuable information such as the average time (8.72 minutes), success (55%) and failure rates, and directness (45%). We could also analyze the path followed in each task per users with its back and forths, their first clicks to understand its first instinct and the final destinations where the participants ended. All this information is provided in 3 different documents: First Click , Paths and Destinations.
To understand each of these tasks results, it is necessary to analyze the different charts generated by the tool, being one of the most important ones the pie-tree chart.
The following images is just a global example that extract the success, failure and abandon rates per task (direct and indirect).
6.Results
The results extracted from this study make us move some elements to a better placement inside the IA:
LDAP: Platform > Security
Search : Content > Platform
OpenOffice : Platform - 3rd Party Utilities > Platform - Connectors
Blogs : Social > Content
Wiki : Social > Content
Flags: In Social - Community Tools merged with Messaging Custom Fields: Content - Forms > Platform - Custom Fields Meetings Administration: Platform - Users > Social - Community Tools
Currency Conv: Content - Commerce > Platform - Localizations
Message Boards: Social - Community Tools > Content - Message Boards
Auto-Login : Security - Auto Login > Security - Security
User Images: Platform - Users > Content - Documents & Media
Audit : Security- Security > Social - User Activity
7.Conclusions
This new information architecture lets Liferay detach its system settings organization from a departmental structure to a natural structure. Now every configuration form can be found according to its nature and meaning inside the system.
All detailed information and the final proposal for System Settings can be consulted in the System Settings Report.
From this:
To this:
