This project is a conceptual redesign of the navigation and informational architecture of the existing Brooklyn Museum website.
Old Design vs. Proposed Redesign
Conceptual Client: Brooklyn Museum
Overview
Goal: Improve the navigation and information architecture of BrooklynMuseum.org
Scope: 2.5 weeks, redesign navigation and information architecture
My Role: UX Designer & Researcher
Tools & Techniques: Sketch, InVision, TreeJack (Tree Study), Card Sorting, Heuristic Evaluation
Hypothesis, Assumptions, & Problem Statement
Hypothesis
Museum visitors need to a website to give them the most relevant information up front that will be of enough interest to entice them to visit the Brooklyn Museum.
Our Challenge
How might we promote the resources, assets, and services of Brooklyn Museum and make them more accessible to all of its website users?
Persona: Florence
Florence represents a common visitor of Brooklyn Museum. She is interested in many of the services that the museum has to offer, but isn’t aware of them all and often get frustrated when searching for information.
Tree Study
Purpose:
Get a baseline understanding of how the existing website is navigable.
Methodology:
2 rounds of 3 tasks were created using TreeJack to test the time and directness it took users to find certain information on various pages. The first round was of the existing website, while the second round was the redesign.
Card Sorting
Purpose:
Discover how users interpret and categorize information; uncover how the target audience’s mental model is structured and create an information architecture that matches users’ expectations.
Methodology:
Conducted 5 open and 5 closed card sorting exercises with 35 items from the museum’s website. Finally, in a 3rd round of closed card sorting we used the same cards with new categories and noted any improvement in organization.
35 items used in the card sorting test
Open Card Sort
Closed Card Sort
Sitemap - Proposed
The existing site map is too deep, which requires moving through many windows to get to the desired location, and the navigation labelling is confusing so the user isn’t aware of where they are and, in some cases, how to get back to where they came from.
To help Florence know what exhibitions are on and to promote events that she may be interested in attending we improved the following:
Condensed Primary and Utility menus to one Primary navigation
Relabelled categories based on card sorting results
Reorganized items into more appropriate categories
Introduced mega menus
Proposed Navigation
While the existing navigation bar appears to be simple, there is clutter and confusion with unnecessary and redundant categories, and two rows of categories. The proposed navigation is more simplified and easier to read for Florence.
Two rows of categories have been condensed and placed in one primary navigation.
“About” and “Press” are less important for everyday users, so they have been moved to the footer navigation.
“Support” and “Become a Member” combined into “Join & Support”.
Final Redesign
The final redesign with proposed navigation puts all the information out front so users like Florence can complete their task more easily and see all the services Brooklyn Museum has to offer that she otherwise wasn’t aware of.
To support the business goals of the museum, revenue generating streams (tickets, memberships, shop) and community engagement (social media) are prominent throughout the navigation without being distracting.
Explore the proposed navigation by clicking the image below.
Click above image to explore the proposed navigation. (Prototype will not have all buttons functional.)