The Final Prototype
We focused on solving current problems on the site and provided possible prototypes.
Site-wide content analysis, content strategy, information architecture, prototyping.
6 teammates (Researchers, content strategists, information architects, visual designers, prototypers)
Sep – Dec 2018 (4 months)
Complying with the mission of our stakeholder Pratt Institute Libraries, which is to provide outstanding service and access to a resource-rich environment that facilitates critical thinking and creative teaching and learning in the Pratt community, we UX researchers and designers, led by Dr. Craig MacDonald and collaborated with Pratt Institute Libraries, helped them enhance the user engagement on Pratt Institute Libraries website and provided a feasible solution for future improvement.
We focused on solving current problems on the site and provided possible prototypes.
Gathering their perspective on the vision, audience, constraints, strategy, and goals through the stakeholder workshop, we understood their main concerns that they would like to improve—
Learning from the survey from 150 samples and 30 interviews in the Pratt community, we found most of them feel confused when looking for information and locating resources on the current website:
It just looks so complicated that I didn’t even try looking for stuff.
Though the interface has improved tremendously, the Pratt Library site is often still difficult to navigate. It’s hard to locate and complete simple tasks like book renewal.
I could not easily find the articles I was looking for.
In addition, we concluded there are five personas with different main needs when using the libraries. We used the persona through the project to guide our design decisions and priorities.
To get a better understanding of the current site, we also conducted the content audit, which indicates duplication and possibly un-intuitive placement of information, and lengthy blocks of text on the current website.
The current website constituted with the amount of lengthy text and un-intuitive navigation causes the lower findability of information and resources for users.
With the study, investigating the design trends based on 10 library sites with different aspects, we focused on learning how other libraries solve the problems that may impede users’ information and resources search. Here are the main takeaways that inspired our design direction:
We developed the content strategy guide as the deliverable for the stakeholders, helping to present meaning to users in a consistent voice and framework that reflects the brand, personality, and goals of The Pratt Institute Libraries. It also serves as a guide for anyone associated with developing or creating content within the Pratt Institute Libraries. It includes our recommendations for voice and tone, personality, crafting content, and accessibility for the libraries. The following are some main points:
To re-organize the current information architecture and improve the navigation, we drafted new information architecture (IA) through card sorting tests with 42 participants and then validated the result through tree tests with 47 participants on Optimal Workshop, which is a user research platform that helps make design decisions. Finally, we confirmed the new IA, which would provide users of all levels of experience with an intuitive, discoverable, and learnable navigation.
In which, the new IA also addresses that—
We re-imagined the most frequent user click-paths UI based on the understanding of the research, trying to improve the information and resource findability that eases users’ path to the high-demand services quickly.
Crafting our first version of hi-fidelity MVP prototype, we met and got some positive feedback from our stakeholder, and they like our design decision!
Overall I think the layout and architecture of their prototype is very well done. It’s nice how they juxtapose the desktop view with the mobile version as well. From looking at the interactive prototypes I think there are definitely great details.
Love the color and design of all of the pages. Conforms to the Pratt style very well!
Looks great! I especially like the changes to the homepage.
Later, we further refined the visual design and the visual guideline that support the information and reflect the Pratt brand identity as the deliverable.
Here are some highlights that help meet users’ needs:
After completing the project, we delivered a presentation to the stakeholders, and they felt impressive about our work achievement!
From this project, I’m aware that developing a strategy ahead of what we will do next is super important. Each case has its own unique approach, and each step in the process will take some time. It may be even time-wasting if we don’t plan ahead, causing something wrong and creating nothing valuable, especially working for a real client within a limited period of time.
In addition, time management is extremely essential when working in a team. We barely iterated the UI design because we spent too much time on doing research. Also, we should actively follow up the team members and properly guide the team to work together if you know what the right direction is. Always be active to communicate.
Furthermore, keeping connected with the users and clients and asking their opinions and feedback are extraordinarily helpful to meet their demands. If we could go over the project again, I hope I could do more exploration on UI for both desktop and mobile versions and run at least one user testing for the prototype.
