1) Content Analysis:

This is about to review the documents and objects that are parts of the current website. Approaches being used in this section are “Noah’s Ark” and ROT (namely: redundant, outdated, or trivial).

“Noah’s Ark”(Format, subject, document, soruce, information architecture) and “ROT” are chosen to analyze Cineplex webpage, because they provide good insights of the contents and disclose issues of the current information architecture. Because of time restrictions, we only selected main webpages for our analysis. Based on our analysis, Cineplex webpages cover various types of document from marketing financial statement to movie information.Some pages include only organization and navigation system, but other pages also include labeling and search system. After analyzing webpages by using ROT, we have found some redundant pages in the website, for examples, corporate products, theater technology and showtime.

2) User Research I: User Interview

Screning: four participants between the age of 20-25 were chosen for interview and data collection. We selected this age group intentionally as we believe they represent a large portion of the potential users of the Cineplex website. Students with experience in technology and interest in films are very likely to book movie tickets through the website. Since people coming from different backgrounds may interact with technology differently, we have decided to select participants from different field of studies. In addition to that, gender variable is also in our consideration. Besides, in order to avoid gender bias, we recruited two female and two male participants.

Interview & Test Design: several rounds of semi-structured interviews were conducted right after user tasks (these are tasks given to the users to preform) to gather primary data on users frustrations, and potentially, some suggestions for improvement. We prepared 7 questions to ask participants. All seven questions are open-ended and some of them are very straightforward. We expected to collect both quantitative and qualitative data from participants’ answers to the questions.

3) User Research II: Card Sorting

Card sorting is a method used to help design or evaluate the current I.A of a website. In a card sorting session, participants organize topics into categories that make sense to them.

Card Sorting Test Screening & Design: To evaluate the current I.A., thirteen participants between age 21to 28 were recruited from the University of Toronto. Because the participants were randomly selected on campus, we do not expect them to have the same levels of familiarity of the current website. In terms of the card sorting tools, we have decided to not use actual cue cards but xSort, a MacOs-based card sorting software, to conduct the exercises with participants. During one of the group discussions, we also conducted step-by-step instructions of how to perform card sorting with participants to standardize this exercise.

Test Process and Results: the participants were told that they need to group cards together based on the similar attributes of the labels. If they do not understand meaning of some labels, they could find short descriptions on the back of the cards. In some cases, if participants find some labels difficult to understand, they are also welcome to introduce new labels to these cards. In addition, if participants experience difficulties with grouping specific cards, they could leave those cards alone as unclassified cards. When participants are performing the exercises, we conducted observation on how they group those cards, and moreover, record all the comments and questions participants raised.

According to the observation and results of card sorting exercises we conducted with participants, we could draw a clear conclusion that the use of ambiguous terms and jargons on the global navigation bar creates confusion to most of the participants.