"Thanks to [Tess's] insights, we have a better understanding of our user's needs, and have identified which parts of our website have the most potential for improvement. This guidance was essential, and I believe that her feedback will help us make effective and high impact improvements to our website."
— Mark Matienzo, Director of Technology at Digital Public Library of AmericaThe Digital Public Library of America (DPLA) is a portal into America's libraries, museums, and archives. Their team took care in developing innovative tools to help users find content in their database of millions of digitized books, pictures, and videos. DPLA asked me to help them understand how to make engaging with those tools more fun and intuitive.
I conducted a heuristic review in which I asked participants to review the search and browse experience on DPLA and two other sites. Participants were asked to find supporting material for an upcoming project and then to reflect on and contrast those experiences. The personal and applied nature of this prompt elicited thoughtful and genuine responses.
Contrasting the experience on different websites, we developed a set of concrete guidelines for what makes a search and browse experience "intuitive". The resulting report created executive alignment around several key aspects of the DPLA's user experience. Watching real people use the site gave the team a common cause to rally around and moved them from opinions to evidence-based decisions.
This project was part of a pro bono effort to help public-good organizations improve their user experience. If you’re interested in collaborating or if you know of an organization that could benefit from similar work, please contact me.