Training Manual IA Project
Improving the information architecture of a complex online training manual during a replatforming project, creating a more intuitive structure through content audits, user research, and collaboration — making information easier to find and use.
Year
2024-2025
Client
Anna Freud
Project overview
As part of a larger replatforming initiative, I worked on improving the information architecture of a comprehensive online training manual used by internal teams and external professionals. The previous structure had grown organically over 15 years, resulting in inconsistent navigation, duplicated content, and a poor user experience.
My role focused on reorganising and restructuring content to improve findability, clarity, and usability. Through content audits, user research, and close collaboration with subject matter experts, I developed a more intuitive taxonomy and navigation system — making it easier for users to access the right information, faster.
This project was a great example of how strong IA can transform a dense content resource into a user-friendly, task-oriented tool.
My Role
As the content designer and UX consultant on this project, I was responsible for:
auditing the existing content structure
collaborating with stakeholders and subject matter experts
developing a new information architecture and navigation system
prototyping and validating the structure with users
designing the layout and structure of webpages in Notion
building wireframes and content templates for different page types
supporting implementation on the new platform
establishing and documenting publishing guidelines for the site
providing design support with infographics and visual assets
Tools used
Figma, Notion, Mural, FigJam, UX Tweak, MS Office.
Behind the scenes
Content map showing the proposed new website structure - this is a collaborative document using Mural, inviting comments from other members of the team.
A simple wireframe for one of the manual pages, made in Figma.
Screengrab from the Tone of Voice workshop with the subject matter experts and project team. This was a remote workshop I ran using FigJam.
Challenges
No user anayltics available
The platform that the manual was originally built on (TiddlyWiki) didn’t provide any way of measuring or providing user analytics, so we were unable to access data for insights into user behaviour or content performance.
Content production bottleneck
As much of the content was several years old, the subject matter experts insisted on a complete rewrite of all the content we were keeping (around 450 pages). Unfortunately the time they could dedicate to this project was very limited and so this created a production bottleneck and delayed delivery by several months.
Density of content
The manual had grown to well over 1000 pages in the 15 years it had been online and it had never been audited. The sheer volume of content was overwhelming and it was an immense task to go through each page to audit the content and other assets.
Limitations of the platform
Some of the ideas from user testing (e.g. providing tooltips for academic terms) were unable to be implemented due to the limitations of the Notion platform. We also had to think creatively when it came to implementing navigation menus and providing visual cues to show users where they were on the website.
Lack of existing structure
The manual was setup as a wiki rather than a traditional website, so there was no existing structure or content hierarchy to use as a base for our work. We were faced with disorganised and overlapping categories, inconsistent content labelling and duplicated pages across several topic areas.
Research process
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15 years of content that had never been audited meant that my first step was to conduct a full content inventory.
I mapped out all 1000+ existing pages and categories. I identified content overlaps, duplicated topic areas, duplicate pages, incomplete pages, broken links, content gaps and usability/accessibility issues.
I then worked with the subject matter experts to determine any other pages we could safely merge or scrap to help clear out any unwanted or outdated materials. We managed to half the amount of pages in the manual, which helped make things less overwhelming for users.
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In order to better understand how people were using the manual, I conducted user interviews with users and stakeholders to gain insights into their goals and existing usability issues.
From this I also created example task flows to help identify pain points and areas for improvement in the navigation.
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Using the insights from the content audit and research, I then proposed a new content hierarchy based on tasks and user needs.
I designed and ran remote card-sorting exercises to inform and validate our categories and page grouping.
Using the results of the card sorting and input from other members of the project team and subject matter experts, I then created a revised sitemap and navigation structure.
This went through several iterations before we signed off on a version to build a prototype from.
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I then built some simple low-fidelity wireframes to test the new structure and worked with a small group of users to validate key tasks using remote tree testing.
The insights from this testing highlighted some issues with the navigation being too deep and some pages being hard to find, so we opted to create a more broad and shallow navigation structure.
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I then built a skeleton structure and content templates for each of the pages on the new platform - Notion.
I supported the team with the hiring of a content editor to populate all the pages with content provided by the subject matter experts, and was on hand to QA the pages during the build.
I also provided support producing new versions of visual assets and infographics to improve clarity and accessibility.
A snippet of the research findings from the card sorting exercise we did.
Outcome
The redesigned structure significantly improved usability, with early testing showing that users were able to find topics more easily and when they got lost or stuck, they were able to navigate themselves back on track. The new search we implemented was much more effective and users were confident to use this feature, making it quicker for them to access specific pages they wanted to find.
We received positive feedback on clarity and content discoverability from the subject matter experts and other stakeholders, which increased their buy-in to the overall replatforming project.
The new information architecture made the manual easier for users to navigate, more scalable, and better aligned with how users think. By workshopping a tone of voice for the manual, we helped to establish some publishing guidelines to help future contributors create consistent, engaging and accessible content.