Background
As part of the General Assembly UX Design Course, the second project involved visiting a local museum, conducting user research, and redesign their e-commerce site based on feedback from museum visitors.
My Role
SKILLS
- Contextual Inquiry
- Affinity Mapping
- User Research
- Design Strategy
- Sketching
- Wireframing
TOOLS:
- Pen/Paper,
- Sketch,
- InVision
The Challenge
Using a UX design process, I had to design a better shopping experience for the Field Museum online store using research gathered at the physical store.
Research
Going into the research phase, I gathered some questions to discover a better perspective on Field Museum visitors' shopping experience.
These are some of the Initial Questions:
- Why do you come to the gift shop?
- What are your thoughts on the shopping store?
- What do you like most about the store? Why?
I made multiple trips to the museum to observe and ask museum-goers my prepared questions. A lot of gathered information was regarding visitors shopping because of their personal interest and/or excitement for a favorite exhibition. Some were even shopping for gifts and travel souvenirs.
Other interesting facts:
- People like the in-person gift shopping experience because they like to learn about the exhibits, and then buy relevant souvenirs to those exhibits.
- Museum branded items are popular with shoppers because it’s something they can take home and have a memory of the museum, especially people from out of town.
Key Insights
Museum visitors shop for items that serve as a reminder of their favorite exhibit experience
People enjoy the exhibit experience and learning from those exhibits
Design Principle
The Field Museum store website will provide a storytelling experience that allows visitors to connect with their favorite museum exhibit visit and conveniently buy gifts.
Design Concepts/Sketches
- Create a more immersive experience (large exhibit pictures)
- Focus on the exhibit story by providing a passage of text to facilitate web experience that serves as a reminder of the physical experience
- Storybook-like
Lo-Fi Prototypes
Landing Page of Site
Sue Exihibit Page w/ Short Story Passage
Quick Navigation & Search for Users to Find Items from Exhibits
I created a functional prototype to communicate the storytelling experience and simple navigation. This prototype demonstrates the design principle and checkout process of this new e-commerce site design.
Future Improvements
This is a foundation for developing a more storytelling-like UX for the online museum store. With some more user testing, feedback, and design iterations, the design could be better. Here are a few areas of improvements:
- Gather more user data & User testing: understanding how exactly does a person navigate the site
- More functional pages and categories