Question Why Films
ROLE:
In a consulting sprint for Question Why Films and the documentarian behind Regarding Susan Sontag, I created organizational recommendations for an online curriculum guide being developed to aid educators using the film in their classes, I created wireframes, a clickable prototype and a narrated video illustrating a user's journey through the material. In a second sprint, I developed a top nav and footer specific to the curriculum, adjusting and simplifying the information architecture further to best use a proposed subdomain being constructed to house the curriculum content.
GOALS:
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Using the small amount of existing content given, create a scalable information architecture scheme, implementable in Wordpress, that Question Why can extrapolate out to the proposed 6 Instructional Units, dozens of lessons, and over 100 classroom activities.
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Increase the amount of useful information a user can absorb on one page without clicking.
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Provide easier access to the downloadable files instructors need to lead the lessons.
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Provide relative printer- and mobile-friendliness.
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On any given page, provide information above the fold that will allow quick assessments of whether the content is appropriate for an instructor's needs, and if not, provide navigability options to allow users to easily drill down, up, or laterally within the information hierarchy.
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Arrange and name information types in a way that allows easier submission to instructor resource sites like neh.gov.
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Preserve branding considerations while providing a different but familiar visual identity for the proposed curriculum subdomain.
SITE MAP
This sitemap is a guide to the Wordpress developer in constructing each page type. Each level of the drilldown carried with it different informational needs, and the map was adjusted for those considerations, including a Curriculum Home page, background reading articles about the film and its subject, a resource center for video and PDF downloadables, instructional units arranged by topic, and the lessons, activities, and assessments contained therein.
NAVIGATION MAP
This map of the proposed top navigation utilizes the freedom of a subdomain to organize the curriculum content into a simple 4-item, global top nav, using action-oriented verbiage to tell the user what they will do when following these headings.
WIREFRAMES
I created mostly-monochrome wireframes, free of elaborate visuals, to provide an example of how a site could be laid out using my map. Those wireframes were assembled into a clickable Invision prototype, illustrating one user's journey drilling into a unit, its lessons, and the lessons' classroom activities and assessments. The goals in wireframing included:
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Increasing the efficiency with which a user/educator evaluated any one unit, lesson, activity or assessment page for a quick and correct decision about whether to teach that piece of content (consistently using the left column for that purpose).
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Using mouseover effects to provide previews of content that is about to be clicked into.
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Breadcrumbing to allow users to travel upwards in the hierarchy if a wrong or inappropriate turn is made.
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Making a lesson's downloadables consistently available but allowing access to an exhaustive "Resource Center."
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PROTOTYPE AND NARRATED VIDEO
A clickable Invision prototype was delivered to show the navigation, information architecture, and interaction designs being proposed through the journey of one user's drilldown from the outer curriculum page into units, lessons, activities, and assessments. I debriefed the client in a lengthy conclusion meeting, in which I demonstrated the prototype, and provided a narrated video for their future reference.