Project
Redesigning the NYC Parks Website
Role
UX/UI Design
Firm
Pratt Institute
Tool
Figma
Team
Nathalie Traikos, Zhichun Zhao
Project Goal
The redesign of NYC Parks website project was for Information Architecture & Interaction Design course at Pratt Institute. Our team of three members aimed optimizing NYC parks website’s user experience by redesigning homepage with ideal site structure for both desktop and mobile devices.
The Design Process
Discovery
User research
Insights
Mental Models
Affinity diagram
User Journey Map
Strategy
Prioritization
Card Sorting
Site Map
Design
Low-fidelity prototype
User Testing
Optimization
Wireframing
High-fidelity prototype
1. Discovery
User research
We conducted semi-structured 1:1 interviews, 12 total, 6 user interviews and 6 contextual inquiries.
Insights
Users tend to spontaneously go to parks as opposed to planning their trip, but they later regretted not knowing what events and activities that they would have liked to attend or prepare for.
Users mainly seek quick recommendations from their trusted social network as opposed to taking time to do research on their own. They rely on this to help make decisions on what parks they should go to.
Users choose to go parks near their apartment for convenience to easily meet their social needs and exercise needs.
Users are either externally focused on other people’s behaviors or internally focused on their own behaviors regarding Covid safety guidelines.
Mental Models
Looking for new experiences as well as building new social connections
Finding outdoor activities
Experience Seeker
Visiting parks to meet friends
Interested in attending events or actives to spend times with friends
Socializer
Visiting parks to relieve stress and get fresh air especially in this pandemic
Refresher
Affinity diagram
User Journey Map
To understand users’ motivations and their pains points, we mapped out this user journey that tracks step by step how users reach their goals, what they think and feel when they meet different touch points in the journey.
2. Strategy
“How might we help make basic park information (such as weather, transportation, hours of operation) easy for users to find?”
“How might we facilitate users know about the activities, events, etc. going on in the parks?”
“How might we help ‘internally focused’ and ‘externally focused’ users find Covid guidelines that suit their needs?”
We prioritized features to focus on four points based on users’ motivation and their needs that we analysed from the user journey and insights in the ‘Discovery’ step.
Card Sorting
Site Map
3. Design
Low-fidelity prototype
User Testing
Based on the low-fidelity prototype, we conducted user testing for 6 participants. The following list of problems were revealed from the user testing.
Unable to find each park’s limited capacity in the COVID information page
Unable to find information if there is any change in operating hours because of COVID
Checking the parks by clicking the area’s name in the park search page is not available
‘Save’ button in the park information section seems make user to create an account
Long text in the COVID information page is overwhelming
‘Live visitor flow’ selection is not located where user expecting to be
Unable to zoom in & out on the map to search a park near the user’s place
Not sure what the difference between programs and events sections
Providing a feature for booking a spot
Relocating the elements of ‘Programs’, ‘Events’ and ‘Park’ to the top on the homepage would make user able to see them instantly once they visit the website
Adding fall foliage prediction map
Making the location map zoomable
Adding calendars on Events section
Providing a feature that user can get updated for certain events such as outdoor movies or concerts
4. Optimization
To optimize user’s experience, we consolidated our wireframe based on users’ feedbacks from the prototype evaluation. We set a specific user task to ensure these elements address user’s needs and provide better structure of the website.
