American Museum of Natural History
Overview
In the project the objective was to gain a better understanding of responsive web and information architecture. My team was assigned the American Museum of Natural history and the task was to find opportunities to improve the information architecture for the online gift store as well as consider how to make the site a more responsive web page.
My Role
In small design teams the UX designer must assume many roles, this time was no different. Over the span of the two-week project I was the UX researcher, user tester, UI designer, interaction designer, and account manager. In my very humble opinion a UX designer must be able to be fluid and able to wear different design oriented hats. The research half of the project, we were in a team of three people
Timeframe
Simply put — 12 days to research, synthesize data, design, test, iterate, and then to put together a client presentation as well as the spec doc. This was a bit of a squeeze but completely doable. The wonderful thing about tight deadlines is the fact that you are confronted with the limits of your own creativity and it is then when the most amazing breakthroughs happen.
Limitations, Parameters, Resources, and Materials
The limitation was not to consider this project a site redesign but rather an information architecture improvement exercise, as well as a user centered design undertaking. Using pen, paper, sketch, omnigraffle, and invision we had solve problems that were discovered through the user research.
Initial Problem Statement
With larger online retailers breathing down on the necks of smaller online outlets the American Museum of Natural History is looking for opportunities to improve their online gift store. Using relevant UX methods, uncover the issues and solve for them. I was under the assumption that museum store would have an impeccable cataloguing system but once I broke down the sitemap and inventory I discovered that there were in fact issues.
How did I confirm or refine my initial assumptions?
Through card sorting I was able to confirm my assumptions. I asked five different people to sort the items into categories they felt made sense. Two people did an open card sort (categories not provided) and their outlook was very illuminating. The three other people did a closed card sort (categories provided) and there wasn’t too much variation in the way they sorted the items.
Sketches
Prototype
