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Brief
VOICES ALOUD is a redesign of the ALOUD media archives, developed for the Library Foundation of Los Angeles (LFLA), a nonprofit organization. The ALOUD program connects authors and great thinkers to a live, public audience to exchange ideas through performances and conversations.
I served as a product designer on a design team tasked with driving awareness and engagement with existing past content on the ALOUD media archives to raise support for the foundation.
My Role
Product Designer
UX Researcher
Scope
Fall 2024
12-Weeks
Academic
Team
Arthur Jensen
Michelle Cheng
Lois Kim
Tools
Figma
Mural
Problem
The ALOUD digital media archives has a trove of past content, but most ALOUD attendees are unaware of its existence. Their website suffers from usability issues lacking robust search and discovery features to engage with content, as well as a strategy to engage with users.
Solution
We proposed a redesign of the archives site streamlining access to recordings of past conversations and performances. Our team focused on improved discoverability features, a new design system to automatically tag content, and a strategic deck for expanding reach.
Impact
Our design solutions provided a blueprint guiding the redesign process of the archives site and validating features, executed by the stakeholders and their design agency.
1
Research
Heuristic Evaluation
Secondary Research
Competitive Analysis
User Surveys
Expert Interviews
2
Synthesis
Key Insights
User Journey
3
Ideation
Solutions
Low-Fidelity
Mid-Fidelity
Iterations
Marketing
4
Final Designs
Prototype
Design System
Implementation
5
Reflection
Outcome
Conclusion
Research
RESEARCH
Heuristic Evaluation
Before starting to design, I first looked at the ALOUD Media Archives page to see what key features the website was missing. After performing an evaluation, I realized how limited the functionality and features for the archives were with many missed opportunities to improve the discovery flow.
Current ALOUD Archives homepage
RESEARCH
Secondary Research
Our team found in the 2023 annual report for LFLA's website, a vast majority of its audience engaged with their content in podcast form in other platforms like their Soundcloud and Spotify pages. That means that most of their users aren't utilizing the website to engage with the event recordings, which can be attributed to many factors including a lack of features or brand awareness in comparison to other platforms.
RESEARCH
Competitive Analysis
Our team looked at other existing digital media collections and museums for comparison on how they structured their gallery and their search functionality features. Through this, we were able to prioritize what main features were missing on the ALOUD archives that we wanted to solve for.
RESEARCH
User Surveys
In order to understand the current ALOUD audience and their awareness of the archives, we conducted user surveys on guests who attended live events at ALOUD and via members that are subscribed to their email channel. What we gathered from the surveys is that ALOUD attendees primarily engage with content to discover new ideas or hear from specific speakers, so current users can be described as lifelong learners that we can focus on.
RESEARCH
Expert Interviews
To better understand how archive systems work, especially on the backend, we reached out to subject matter experts to validate our potential solutions. Through these conversations, we discovered that automated tools can be utilized to do most of the lifting for creating a new design system for tagging and organizing content. However, we need to keep in mind that the LFLA has very limited resources and manpower, so we would need to find tools and outsourcing within budget for this project.
Synthesis
SYNTHESIS
Key Insights
Following our interviews and additional secondary research, we synthesized the information into three key insights to guide our ideation process in finding solutions.
SYNTHESIS
User Journey
After identifying our target user as lifelong learners, we created a journey map to understand how that user engages with the ALOUD archives website. We found that there were many missed opportunities in expanding the reach and awareness of the archives for attendees and ways to extend the experience after the site with community engagement features like sharing videos & clips.
Ideation
IDEATION
Solutions
With discovery and search being the main focus of our redesign, our team looked at various options to improve the discovery flow and increase engagement with the content. We also noted from our expert interviews that a robust tagging system would be necessary to accomplish our goals, so we explored methods to streamline the current process of uploading and archiving ALOUD's digital media.
Redesign Goals
1
Help users discover old content with better search functions
2
Add features to allow users to share archive content
3
Improve reach of archives through live event touchpoints
IDEATION
Low-Fidelity
Once we established the design direction, our team divided responsibilities to explore key sections of the website through initial wireframes. This included the homepage, episode layouts, and essential features like the search and filter functionalities, allowing us to focus on delivering a comprehensive and cohesive user experience.
IDEATION
Mid-Fidelity
Building on the selected homepage design, I developed mid-fidelity wireframes to refine both the homepage and episodes page layouts. This process included exploring features such as trending topics, transcription tools, and community discussion sections. Additionally, I created multiple iterations of filtering and tag discovery features to ensure a streamlined experience.
IDEATION
Iterations (WIP)
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IDEATION
Marketing
Part of the problem that we discovered in our research and surveys was that many ALOUD attendees are unaware of the archives. LFLA does not have any materials at events to promote the archives, so we put together a marketing plan targeting various points of the live events where materials like posters or digital screens can be utilized to promote the website.
Final Designs
FINAL DESIGNS
Prototype
Challenge + Solution (WIP)
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FINAL DESIGNS
Design System (WIP)
At the foundation of the redesign is a new design system with methods such as AI-based tagging and manual tagging systems that we explored for streamlining the organization and processing of massive archive content. We proposed both solutions as possibilities for the stakeholders with AI-based tagging being a stronger long-term solution.
Manual Tagging Method with Sheets
Style Guide (WIP)
Reflection
REFLECTION
Outcomes (WIP)
Product Validation
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REFLECTION
Conclusion (WIP)
Key Takeaways
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Next Steps
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