Proposed COD information architecture [#1004698]

ezra-g and I have been collaborating on a new and improved information architecture for COD. Here's the sites we used for inspiration. We really like it but are open to feedback. The wireframes will be used to create a default COD theme that highlights the appropriate calls to action (Log in! Register! Buy a ticket! Submit a session! etc)

Proposed primary navigation/sections:

* Home
* Attend
* Program
* Speakers
* Connect
* Sponsors

The primary sections and related subsections are broken out in the table below.

Home

Subsections:
News (news nodes)
Overview (About this conference, Why you should attend)
Featured speakers

Purpose for this section:
Answer questions such as: What is the event about, where is it, and when is it happening?
Show latest news re: event
Show off features speakers to entice people to enter the site

Attend

Subsections:
Register
Venue (Name, address, phone, map, floorplans)
Travel (getting around, airports, trains etc)
Accommodation
Local information (restaurants, tourism)

Purpose for this section:
Pay for/register for the event
Answer questions such as: Where is the venue, what are the transportation options, parking, what can I eat/do in the evening, and what are the nearby lodging options
Inform what can significant others do during the event while attendee is busy.

Program

Subsections:
Session Schedule
Sessions
Training

Purpose for this section:
See overall schedule
See session schedule
See personalized session schedule
Find sessions based on
* Experience level
* Intended audience/track
* Presenter

Speakers

* Submit a session

Purpose for this section:
See featured speakers (e.g. curated sessions and keynote speakers) in order to entice people to attend
Encourage people to submit session proposals

Connect

Subsections:
Attendees
Discussions (Forum)

Purpose for this section:
Find/view other attendees based on
* Name
* Job title
* Location
* Interests
* Organization
Participate in forum discussions
Connect with other attendees (tbc but possibly flag: I’m a fan, I’m a friend, I want to meet)

Content types & fields

Event

Title
Start date
End date (optional)
(Price if not free)

Attendee profile (attendee and speaker)

Username
Full name
Organization name (nodereference)
Job title
Biography 1-2 liner
Full biography
Interests (checkboxes)
Sessions presenting (automatically generated by a view)

Session

Title
Presenters (user reference)
Description
Schedule info (fieldset)
Timeslot
Room
Status
Audience
Track (radios)
Experience level (checkboxes/select)
Slides (filefield)

Room

Name
Description
Image (location on venue map)
Capacity

Timeslot doesn’t currently have fields.

Comment	File	Size	Author
#11	cod-program.pdf	57.78 KB	lisarex
#11	cod-community.pdf	107.69 KB	lisarex
#7	cod-program.pdf	56.57 KB	lisarex
#7	cod-connect.pdf	106.93 KB	lisarex
#2	Screen shot 2010-12-22 at 13.46.40.png	39 KB	lisarex
#1	cod-program-speakers.pdf	56.68 KB	lisarex
#1	cod-connect-attend.pdf	106.92 KB	lisarex

Support from Acquia helps fund testing for Drupal Acquia logo

Comments

Comment #1

lisarex CreditAttribution: lisarex commented 21 December 2010 at 23:12

Status:

Active

» Needs review

File	Size
cod-connect-attend.pdf	106.92 KB
cod-program-speakers.pdf	56.68 KB

Wireframes for the Attend, Connect, Program and Speakers page. Additional wireframes can be created if needed, but I'd rather just build this in Drupal!

Comment #2

lisarex CreditAttribution: lisarex commented 22 December 2010 at 18:50

File	Size
Screen shot 2010-12-22 at 13.46.40.png	39 KB

Proposed sitemap (sorta reiterates what's above, but is slightly easier to grok)

Comment #3

coltrane

he/him

CreditAttribution: coltrane commented 24 December 2010 at 20:04

I think the IA is awesome! Seems to cover everything. "Connect" seems a bit odd only in that it's more abstract then the other top-level items. I don't have a recommendation at the moment for something else, though.

The wireframes are good but I would want to rearrange some elements, unless it's suppose to be more generic and not used for exact layout. For example, the proposed sessions link on Speakers might be better in the right sidebar? Also, I think some sponsor blocks elsewhere than just the footer would be good, to reinforce tier levels.

Comment #4

ezra-g CreditAttribution: ezra-g commented 25 December 2010 at 05:42

Thanks for the feedback, @coltrane!

I agree that more display of sponsoring companies would be good. I see the right sidebar is an opportune place to put sponsor logos.

Ideally all of this would be configurable (potentially with Panels in some places) so that it can be easily tweaked per-site.

I believe we we also mocked up an organization page (such as for sponsoring organizations) on the whiteboard- Would be great to do up as a proper wireframe since that' an important page :).

The user profile page also seems potentially worth mocking up. It would be good to provide a list of what information it show.

Comment #5

brentratliff CreditAttribution: brentratliff commented 28 December 2010 at 14:52

Hey guys,

I'm using COD support (alpha 2) for a client build currently and am changing the IA a little bit. I know the 1.0 version of COD is designed for single events, but with 2.0 in mind and ezra-g's code comments about session tracks as node reference instead of text fields, I added the ability to enter the tracks that the event will have when the event node is created. Theses tracks are nodes with all the benefits that gives us in D6. I'm still working with how to best arrange the nodereferences so that tracks can be added during event creation (node relationships module) and then associated with sessions by the event coordinator. I would love your thoughts. My other option is to use taxonomy for tracks which may be the more strait forward way to go.

Comment #6

lisarex CreditAttribution: lisarex commented 2 January 2011 at 14:03

@coltrane & ezra-g, how about "Community" instead of "Connect"? It fits just as well. The social media and past event photos would work in a Community section too.

Rather than doing lots of mockups upfront, we're building this out in a dev site which gives us a chance to interact with it a bit more, to determine what works best (and we can user test it too!)\

But we can definitely mockup anything that isn't coming across well in the dev site.

Comment #7

lisarex CreditAttribution: lisarex commented 9 January 2011 at 19:30

File	Size
cod-connect.pdf	106.93 KB
cod-program.pdf	56.57 KB

Attached are the updated wireframes with "Community" in the primary navigation.

Comment #8

yoroy CreditAttribution: yoroy commented 20 January 2011 at 16:17

subscribe :)

Comment #9

ezra-g CreditAttribution: ezra-g commented 16 March 2011 at 22:45

One thing not depicted here that might be valuable is a "featured speakers" carousel for particular featured speakers, that could sit atop a list of all presenters.

Comment #10

greggmarshall

Aurora/Denver, Colorado

CreditAttribution: greggmarshall commented 16 March 2011 at 23:32

I did a site that had featured seminars (http://www.progreenexpo.com) that used a views slideshow based on a single checkbox field to make any seminar "featured".

One entire navigation tree that is missing is for exhibitors, which for larger conferences is different than sponsors (e.g. the exhibit hall for DrupalCon Chicago, or a really large show like CES).

I also think there needs to be additional information on attendees, including social media links like Twitter, FaceBook and LinkedIn.

Is there some link resulting from sign up that also makes available additional attendee information like where they are from? That is going to be needed to make badges (DrupalCon Chicago had job titles and not location, which most people I talked to would have rather had location -- e.g. where are you from?)

Comment #11

lisarex CreditAttribution: lisarex commented 22 March 2011 at 04:24

File	Size
cod-community.pdf	107.69 KB
cod-program.pdf	57.78 KB

A couple things I would change from my previous wireframes in #7, now that I'm revisiting this

Attend should probably not be #2 in the navigation.
'Location' probably makes more sense than 'Attend'

Having these as long pages seems great to me. I only have the second level nav at the top in case people want to jump down to the relevant section, but obviously that depends very much on how the site is implemented, theme etc.

With that in mind, here's a couple updated wireframes (again, kinda rough, but we'll work it out)

@greggmarshall:
- I think Exhibitor stuff would be great, but we probably won't pick it up in the Drupal 6 version...
- The social aspect, pre-conference network etc is definitely in the works. Exact imlementation tbc. We need to keep COD fairly generic, but can always create separate Features or documentation on implementing more of this.
- I definitely want an attendee location field (you can see it in the first mockup of the Community pdf linked).