In this project, five students developed a user testing plan to identify potential usability problems found on the Brooklyn Historical Society’s website (brooklynhistory.org). Ten participants who were familiar with BHS and/or interested in the history of Brooklyn were recruited and completed a series of tasks and questionnaires. After all testing was complete, the results were reviewed and recommendations for potential usability problem areas were provided.

 

Three major themes of usability issues were identified:

  1. Content pages have flat information hierarchy, are text-heavy, and lack interesting visual elements
  2. Navigation bars on both the BHS website and the Online Image Gallery page lack contrast and contain labels (for example, ‘Public History’) that are not user friendly
  3. The deep navigation menu on the BHS website often lead to participant frustration and confusion

 

To address the usability issues we make the following recommendations:

• Reduce the amount of text and add visual elements to the Search the Collections Page

• Improve the visibility of the Online Image Gallery navigation bar and search features

• Reorganize the Membership page for clarity and add visual elements

• Condense the Public Program Page and add an analog calendar

• Simplify and rearrange the left navigation menu and conduct further research

July Sosebee

July Sosebee

Yiren Wang

Yiren Wang

I’m a graduate student at Pratt Institute, majoring in Data Analysis and Visualization. After graduated from the Guangzhou Academy of Fine Arts, I worked as a graphic designer for six years. My last job was being a senior design officer and visual design manager at Shenzhen Center for Design (SCD), which organizes competitions, curates exhibitions, and researches topics on anthropology and urbanism about the city. Besides managing the visual identity system, most of my projects at SCD were related to architecture and urban design, and many of them are data and logic based. This triggered me to come to the United States, and continue my study on visual design, specifically in mapping and data visualization.
pliang

pliang

Xingya Wang

Xingya Wang

Xingya Wang

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