A Usability Study On Recruitment Websites' Information Architecture

With the emergence and widely application of Internet, information architecture has been gaining more and more attention. As a tool for information serialization and optimization, information architecture has a direct impact on the effectiveness, efficiency and user satisfaction for access to information. How to evaluate information architecture is very important. The author chooses usability methods to evaluate and design information architecture. Usability methods' core is based on the user-centered design methodology, it is from the users' perspective to evaluate the websites' easy of use, efficiency and user satisfaction. In order to prove the validity of usability methods' research on information architecture, the author selects recruitment websites' information architecture as a case study.Firstly, the author conducts the usability test on the typical recruitment websites, finds usability problems and the users' behavior and puts forward the principles of designing recruitment websites' information architecture. Secondly, the author conducts card-sorting test and label system cognizing test, provides organizational structure design and labels' naming references. Finally, the author selects a typical recruitment website, redesign its information architecture as a prototype, and then, the author conducts the usability test to validate whether the information architecture is improved. It turns out it does, the user satisfaction is improved and so usability methods' improving information architecture is valid.The information architecture's design guidance sets a good example for other recruitment websites' design and the research process also sets a good example for evaluating and designing other types of websites' information architecture.