Highlighted Skills
Research Methods (Focus Groups, Task-oriented Studies, Surveys, Interviews, Usability Testing)
Stakeholder Engagement
Presenting Design Research
Graphic Design: Elle Levy, Jenn Goodrich; Web Development: Matt Popke
The Denver Art Museum launched a website for Educators with resources based on art objects from the collection in 2010. In my roles in Youth & Community Experience, I oversaw managing research and design iteration cycles to support a cross-functional team of content creators, designers, developers, and marketing peers. This case study focuses on exploring how we could expand to a new audience sector and make resources "less buried" during a CMS migration process. Generative and usability studies supported creating a visual landing page that encouraged scrolling and reworking resource layouts and clustering - all resulting in increased repeat engagements.
How do we engage Early Childhood Educators with online resources?
How might teachers more easily find what they are looking for?
Goals of Research
Sample questions included:
Facilitating Stakeholder Engagement with Research
I chose to represent findings from our exploratory research in the form of Empathy and Journey Maps. Harkening back to our initial goals, the team needed to understand who this website was for - and about any competing variables they should consider. We focused on demands, interests, and pain points felt by 1) Early Childhood Educators and 2) K-8 teachers to represent our audiences.
After getting more familiar with the interests of our audience, I shared a journey map based on my observations and feedback we received of navigating the web (and our live website). This tool broke down the action steps we had seen and aligned emotions (based on comments received) that came with navigating our website to look for something to support in their classroom. This map focused more on the experience of the K-8 teacher, due to the resources we had available at the time.
Challenges
Results
As a result of the state of schools due to the COVID-19 pandemic, in-person access to a major Traveling Art Exhibition (Frida Kahlo) would be limited for all visitors and impossible for a majority of school groups. This issue accelerated providing resources related to Special Exhibitions and new tour offerings on the Creativity Resource platform. Research was conducted at all phases of feature development to support quick iteration, including surveys, prototype testing, usability testing, and interviews.
Art Credit: Dan Ostermiller, Scottish Angus Cow and Calf, 2001, Bronze
Selected Works
Creativity ResourceResponsive Online Learning Resource Project
Peace Love & CookingResponsive Lifestyle Brand Project
Gallup New Deal ArtArts-focused Website
Kristina Mahoney Wall
Product Research & Design Specialist
kristinawall.experiencedesign@gmail.com