Brendon Gabriel
Archivist Round Table
The Challenge
My Role
Process
Methodology
Design Task
NYC Archivists Round Table was founded in 1979 and is known as a nonprofit organization. Serving a diverse group of more than 400 archivists , librarians, and record managers in the NYC area. Also one of the largest local organizations of its kind in the United States. The mission of ART is to educate the public on the legal, historical, and cultural value of public and private archives and manuscript collections.
The organization's website needs to be redesigned to better connect with its audiences, including a well organized, easy to navigate, and visually attractive for their users. Having just a 2 month timeline, our recommendations were to focus on a user centered design that focused on giving a smooth navigational experience to ensure users reach their goal.
The organization's website needs to be redesigned to better connect with its audiences, including a well organized, easy to navigate, and visually attractive for their users. Having just a 2 month timeline, our recommendations were to focus on a user centered design that focused on giving a smooth navigational experience to ensure users reach their goal.
In order to understand more of what the clients wanted to fix on their site each team member focused on a specific user group to conduct research on. The list varied from students, librarians, and archivists. From there the team each visited the client's site to come up with tasks for the demographic users. In order to make sure that all of our clients goals were met and for the future design making process, we made sure that we implemented the users needs after they’ve completed their testing to ensure useful recommendations.
A challenge that the team faced was COV19. Due to the virus we were unable to do in-person interactions. Controlled test environments had to be compromised for the good of participants and researchers’ health and safety.
The researchers thus used traditional user test methods via the internet. The team developed following procedures to maximize the accuracy of data collection:
1. To control the environment remotely, participants were asked to finish all the tests on their computer desks within 45 minutes.
2. All the tests were accomplished with the same online meeting tool.
3. Participants were asked to open their cameras throughout the tests and to share their screens with the researchers at the same time.( In this way, researchers can still observe how users interact with the product and wouldn’t lose certain nuances such as body language and facial expression of the users.）
Users were giving a SCENARIO, TASK LIST, PRE-TEST QUESTIONNAIRE, POST TEST QUESTIONNAIRE.
SCENARIO - "You are an archive enthusiast who heard about Archivist Roundtable from your friend. You want to know more about it."
PRE-TEST QUESTIONNAIRE - “What would you do when trying to seek events on a specific website?"
TASK LIST:
Timeline-Related
A friend sent you a link to the A.R.T Awards ceremony because you told her that you are interested in this event.
Can you please check it out and see when this event happened？
You want to know more about A.R.T events.Can you find out what event took place on November 01, 2019？
Can you describe your overall experience during the process of finding out the event? Is there anything unclear in the website? Did you meet any difficulties?
Did the overall experience meet your expectations?
Location-Related
Go back to “A.R.T. Awards Ceremony” Page. Can you tell on which location this event is taking place？
Are you able to find 3 events that took place in Manhattan?
Can you describe your overall experience during the process of finding out the event? Is there anything unclear in the website? Did you meet any difficulties?
Did the overall experience meet your expectations?
Registration-Related
Can you try to register for the event “Fashion: Now & Then” and describe your experience, how did it make you feel?
Can you try to register for the event “2019 New York Archives Week Awards Ceremony” and describe your experience navigating to it?
Can you try to register the event “An evening at Poster House” and describe your feelings?
Could you please compare the two register processes, do you have any preference or what do you think?
POST TEST QUESTIONNAIRE - "Can you please write down two descriptive words for your overall impression about the website?"
Link to Final Deliverables
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