Meli - Knowledge Base Navigation Solution Wireframe Challenge

Welcome to Meli - Knowledge Base Navigation Solution Wireframe Challenge. In this challenge, we are looking for your wireframe solutions that help simplify the complex matrix of products and nested categories for organizing contents within the “knowledge base”.

We are looking for wireframe (Axure) solutions based on requirements from our client. We’re also looking to the community to come up with interesting ideas for the workflow - we’re absolutely open to creative solutions!

At the end of this challenge, we are looking to have a complete solution for the user experience and flow of the application.

Round 1

Initial Wireframe Concepts of the below scenarios for checkpoint review
- Scenario 1
- Scenario 2

Any additional features or screens that will help explain your idea..

Round 2

Final Wireframe Concepts with any checkpoint feedback implemented
- Scenario 1
- Scenario 2
- Scenario 3 (Custom Scenario)

Any additional features or screens that will help explain your idea

For this challenge, we are looking for your help in coming up with a good navigational hierarchy for “knowledge base” contents. This navigation hierarchy is the categorization of products contents within a “knowledge base” that leads to the corresponding help content for a product. We’re looking for ways to to organize the data in a simple, clean, intuitive way - please see below for requirements.

Wireframe Expectations:
- Produce HTML click through wireframes that can be used to demonstrate all mentioned functionalities as required in each round.
- We are looking for ways to keep this website very easy to use and intuitive. Keep that in mind when designing your solution.
- It is very important that you go through below given problems and example references to come up with a wireframe solutions that helps solve this issue..

Current Problem:
Client of this challenge will be using Salesforce Knowledge as the engine to drive users to find the content they need on various products. Currently the client isn’t very happy with the standard implementation of the product due to their very complex matrix (categorization) of products and nested categories.

IMPORTANT! Key Points:
These points need to be considered while designing your wireframes...
- Currently, they are using a system where content owners organize things in different ways and it leads to confusion for users.
- Some users like to use the search field, but may not know the exact name of what they are looking for, how can we solve that problem?
- Some users would rather drill into the section, but don’t want a lot of clicks to get there..
- Some users don’t know the top level category names - but know some of the lower level names.
- The number of top-level menu items visible will vary based on user permissions. Some people might only have 1 or 2 options, some may have all - your wireframe must consider that.
- All categories at all levels will have content added at any time with no upper limit currently in mind.

Other considerations
- No two users will approach looking for content in the same way. Can we offer multiple ways for users to find content? How can we switch views easily?
- While the business owners like the organization of 3-4 levels deep, this will be cumbersome to users with cascading menus or deep clicks. How can we minimize that?

Reference Sites:
The client likes these are reference: example 1, example 2 for these reasons..
- Very easy to navigate with the menu structures
- The addition of Most Viewed or Most Popular as quick links to surface the commonly downloaded items
- Clean and uncluttered
- They enjoy imagery/icons to help visually cue users. If possible, including some in this challenge would be great. As this is a Wireframe challenge, placeholder boxed for images/icons is totally acceptable.

Required Navigation Hierarchy:
To help you get started - we had tried to put up couple of navigational scenarios, please go through and come up with your navigational ideas for each of them…

Scenario 1:
- Please see "Option 1" in the attached "navigation options.xls"
- Please go through the

“> Main Category (WEB's, WEBs Security, HVAC Controllers, LCBS, Field Devices)
>> Sub-Category 1 (Niagara AX, Niagara 4)
>>> Sub-Category 2 (Software, Hardware)
>>>> Sub-category 3 (note that, we need to have a filterable list of article types)”

-- Note that user will be able to access the contents from any of the sub-category, please make sure to consider that!
-- Make sure to go through customer problem and also the example references to create a better navigation/organization of contents..
-- Please look to use the given names for each of the sub-category, we would like to see the entire navigation hierarchy as shown in the "navigation options.xls"
-- Final content that will be accessed through these navigational hierarchy is the knowledge base contents/articles..

Scenario 2:
- Please see "Option 2" in the attached "navigation options.xls"
- Compared to Option 1, in this option 2 hierarchy: we have more nested categories..
- Note that, the article type that was used as filterable list is used a main sub-category branching out from “main category”
- Note that some categories has only four levels of navigation and some has five levels, please pay attention to these in the attached excel

“> Main Category (WEB's, WEBs Security, HVAC Controllers, LCBS, Field Devices)
>> Sub-Category 1: Article Types (Agreements and policies, Bulletins, Presentations, Product Diagrams and Drawings, Software Download Material, Technical Tips, Warranty, Returns and Ordering)
>>> Sub-Category 2 (Niagara AX, Niagara N4, Release 1, Release 2...etc....)
>>>> Sub-category 3 (Visio, DWX, etc…)
>>>>> Sub-category 4 (Content 1, Content 2...etc…)”

-- Note that user will be able to access the contents from any of the sub-category, please make sure to consider that!
-- Compared to the Scenario 1/Option 1, you can see the variation here - where "Article type" is not shown as a filterable option.
-- In this option, we have some additional navigational levels..
-- Make sure to go through customer problem and also the example references to create a better navigation/organization of contents..
-- Please look to use the given names for each of the sub-category, we would like to see the entire navigation hierarchy as shown in the "navigation options.xls"
-- Final content that will be accessed through these navigational hierarchy is the knowledge base contents/articles..

Scenario 3 (Custom scenario):
- In addition to above two scenarios, we would like to see if you have any other ideas based on the above navigational hierarchy
- Looking for you to come up with suggestions for some additional navigational hierarchy!

Target Audience:
- Users of this site are very technical, often engineers. They aren’t very consumer-saavy and wouldn’t be up on latest trends in web design. It’s very important this be intuitive and logical.

Judging Criteria:
Your submission will be judged on the following criteria:
- User experience
- Completeness and accuracy of the areas of functionality and content
- How well your wireframes provide a consistent user flow and clear information architecture for the application

Submission & Source Files:
Preview Image
Create your preview image as one (1) 1024x1024 JPG or PNG file in RGB color mode at 72dpi and place a screenshot of your submission within it.

Submission File
Generated HTML files with all the requested contest requirements stated above.

Source Files
Wireframes should be built in Axure. The resulting files should have generated HTML files. Also, all the content must be listed and the pages are linked together to show page flow.

Final Fixes
As part of the Final Fix phase, you may be asked to remove, update, or change some features of the wireframe