In order to create a detailed but ellegant domain model, as part of the coursework in Information Architecture, I tried to collect as many information as possible by interviewing 4 different individuals. The first subject owns a shoe factory for decades, the second works as a seller in a shoe store for almost 5 years and the other two could be proclaimed as online shoe shopping experts by having big experience in buying shoes from a variety of websites.
In my first semi-structured interview, I tried to focus on how many different materials are commonly used in the creation procedure and how the manufacturer categorizes the different kinds of shoes. In the second unstructured interview, I wanted to learn from the expert shoe seller about what customers care more about when going to the store. From the last two interviews, I wanted to find out how these customers interact with the different websites. I obtained useful information about what they believe to be helpful and what obstacles they face. After the interviews, I made a research in different online shoe stores to collect more information about the pros and cons that my expert online shoppers mentioned. From all the collected data, I realized that apart from “value for money”, online shoppers want this procedure to be pleasant but most of the times they are concerned about fitting problems and delivery times.
After analysing all these data, I used Microsoft Visio to create a diagram of the domain model by having in mind all the questions about the audience, the context and such.