CLIENT RESEARCH
The Design Museum of Chicago is a museum that displays a large variety of artwork and wishes to connect the community around them. "Bringing design to a relatable, human level allows us all to better understand the power of design and to utilize that power to fundamentally improve the human condition". Since beginning my redesign their current website was actually redesigned and published, so my research & analysis is based on their August 2020 website.
For my redesign, I wanted to reflect the high level of quality that their exhibit does on their website. I liked the sleek and modern look of their current site, so I planned to keep that aspect, along with a simple color scheme and layout that is focused on images. The main improvement I plan to make is to give the pages more structure and flow, creating a more professional feel. I also want to bring in more experiential aspects, as this site should inspire excitement in its users to visit the museum.
I also researched other museums to get a better understanding of what competitors were producing. This research was beneficial to see what is working and what isn't working in other sites, so I can keep this in mind when building out my new site.
ANALYSIS
In my Analysis, I noted what elements the current Design Museum of Chicago's site included and did not include. This step was important because it helped me recognize what needed to be changed or added to my redesign.
STRATEGY
For my strategy, I determined all the possible users that may be using the Design Museum of Chicago's website. I then grouped these possible users into similar categories, and from those categories I created personas. These personas helped give me an idea of the main types of people using this website. With this in mind, I could redesign the website to create the best possible user experience for them.
Part A: Product Objectives Statement:
The purpose of this website is to provide users with information about the Design Museum of Chicago, its exhibitions, events, products and membership. It is also meant to get viewers excited or interested in visiting the museum. The success of this website will be determined by the higher number of individuals visiting the museum, attending the events, buying memberships and products.
Part B: User Needs
1. Determine Possible Users
2. User Segmentation
3. Personas
4. User Testing
5. Persona Cards
.jpg)
.jpg)
SCOPE
7. User Needs Statement
Users of the Design Museum of Chicago should be able to easily find an abundant/up-to-date amount of information about the Museum itself, upcoming events, exhibits, memberships, and products. This information needs to be displayed cleanly, but also in a manner that reflects the brand of the museum itself. This display & branding should be able to connect to the professionals & the everyday visitors getting them excited about visiting the museum & learning more about what they have to offer. In the end, gaining more visitors and building a higher return rate.
%20copy.png)
.png)
SKELETON
For the skeleton, I focused on building out the wireframes for my website. It was important to solidify the functionality of my site, making sure it worked properly for the users before I added the fine-tuning of the surface design.
SURFACE
For the surface, I worked on incorporating the final layer of design to my website. The surface design is important because this is what the users associate the brand with. The more visually pleasing the more the user is likely to remember the website and therefore revisit it. For my visual design, I wanted it to come off as clean, modern, artistic, and professional, while also not taking any attention away from the art & information. I made a few changes to the look after seeing it all come together. Overall, this site provides much more structure, usability, professionalism and artistic qualities than its previous state.
Client Analysis:
What is working?: Each persona was able to find the information they needed. The sections are titled and split up nicely.
What isn’t working?: The layout is not visually pleasing and difficult to navigate, the navigation bar is too small and the images are too small & too few. Also, there needs to be more descriptive information underneath each section.
What should be included in the rebranding and what shouldn’t?: Should: New layout, more info, more pictures, new navigation bar, better checkout process. Shouldn’t: Keep the information they currently have, how they have the pages split up, the size of each page.
Competitor Analysis:
The competitors have more of a visual display, a more modern look, a visible button to buy tickets ahead of time, a layout that fills the whole page, easy to read text with image sizes that feel appropriate, skimmable yet precise information, and is more experiential for the users.
STRUCTURE
For the structure, I built the information architecture of the old Design Museum of Chicago website. Then I built the information architecture for the new web design that I was creating. This helped me organize all of the website information and figure out how I wanted to group pages for the user's navigation before making my first prototype. The green boxes are new pages that I added on.
