Project name: Online magazine (Individual)
*This project is fictive. Real clients were not involved in it.
Purpose: Create an Online magazine about a topic you are interested in. 
Main role: User Experience designer (User research – Field & Desk; Testing; Information architecture; Sitemap)

The topic of my Online magazine is fashion. I am interested in fashion and I wanted to do a research on it. I also wanted to see what it means for other people and what are their habits when it comes to buying clothing. I also took this project as an opportunity to educate myself and other people.

Good planning is essential for efficient work

I had a few weeks for this project so I first started by planning what am I going to do each week. As you can see from my planner, every week is a sprint of its own, with tasks slowly transitioning from one phase to another.

Framing the context & getting ideas

I kicked off the first week with a brainstorm of what fashion really is and looked into various aspects of it. To give a structure to my scattered thoughts and stimulate the flow of ideas, I decided to make a mindmap. This mindmap served as an inspiration throughout the whole project.

Consequently, I began conducting my research – both desk & field. I had interviews with people who are interested in fashion, analyzed their shopping habbits and we spoke about the problems and effect it has on the environment.

I made a persona which reflected my research and represented a target group. I read more about topics such as fast fashion and child labour. Finally, I integrated the user-centered approach and chose content that is of interest to my target group.

Sorting out the structure

After looking at my mindmap and research, I came up with what can be possible content for my website. Focusing on user-centered design, I allowed the users to determine the information architecture themselves by conducting card sorting.

During the Open card sorting, they had to group the categories and name them according to what makes the most sense to them. In the Closed card sorting, they were given categories and had to place content under them.

Sitemap

Summing up the results from the testing, I made a sitemap which corresponded to what makes the most sense to the users.