User (persona) research
Background
Beit Hatfutsot - Museum of the Jewish people is more than just a museum, in fact it’s made up of three parts: The museum itself, The International School for Jewish Peoplehood Study and the Open Databases.
The databases is huge collection gather for almost four decades of information that tell the Jewish people story.
Some of the databases such as the places, family names and Luminaries, were formulated by the researchers occupy by the museum and by volunteers.
Some were donated to us over the years - such as the images & family trees Databases.
Before & After - search & results page
Before & After - Focus on a person in a tree
The Mission
The big mission is to make this huge databases available on the Internet.
Until recently if someone wanted to search the databases he or she needed to physically come to the museum’s computer room, we want to change it, we want that everybody to enjoy it free of charge & from anywhere they want.
Until recently if someone wanted to search the databases he or she needed to physically come to the museum’s computer room, we want to change it, we want that everybody to enjoy it free of charge & from anywhere they want.
Me & my team
I'm in charge to define & design all the museum online assets
with me working on this product is my amazing team that i want to give credit:
Benny Daon - Software Architect & Senior developer
Inna Romaneko - Developer
Nikolai Beltov- QA
Ushi Derman- Content
Nurit Gazit - Chief Digital Officer (My big and beloved boss)
About the family trees database
All the information in the Family tree database is a generate user data, all the trees was donated to us. The Museum does not provide a platform to build a family tree at least not now (but there is a lot of plans for the future) however we do need to display them nicely.
All the information in the Family tree database is a generate user data, all the trees was donated to us. The Museum does not provide a platform to build a family tree at least not now (but there is a lot of plans for the future) however we do need to display them nicely.
How to start
The first thing I did after I got the task of defining and designing the family tree database was to build my own family tree - there are different platforms for it over the web and I experienced some of them - it was important because I did not know the world of genealogy.
After learning I needed to start forgetting first of all because that the museum provides a platform for saving trees but not for building trees, and there's a huge difference when you exploring in the tree you've built and know all the names and contexts (or at least some of them) than exploring strange tree that is not yours and you try to figure out if you know some of the people in it.
And another thing I don’t represents our users, maybe they want and need different things.
Main Goal
We wanted to provide an easy way to the database, to present all results and to be able to focus on every person in a tree.
Everyone had a different opinion about what the user needs are, for example
Mr. Haim Ghiuzeli, Director of the Databases Department
who handle genealogy more than thirty years thought that there was not enough information in the pages & that there is a lot of waste space that can be fill with more useful data. However most people thought the display is too complex and loaded as it is.But what will be good for our users? Who are they anyway? what will make them interest?
It was hard to know because the site has not yet been lunched, we knew who are the museum visitor whom interested in the databases and family trees, but are them the same online user?
It was hard to know because the site has not yet been lunched, we knew who are the museum visitor whom interested in the databases and family trees, but are them the same online user?
So that’s how I started on working on the personas research
The Personas Research
We started by unofficial interview with people who came to the museum computer room, watching them & asking them question, trying to understand what motived them & what will interest them.
Then I made total of seven personas - each given a full name a photo, a profession and background. I define their general use of web site & digital products also what’s their main purpose in the database, what’s can Harm their experience what will make them happy and how can I help them achieve this.
Although I made 7 persona I consider only the difficulty and needs of the main persona, I did rank each persona and if needed considering the second & third persona also.
The next step was understanding where in the flow the persona will meet each difficulty and giving it solution.
For example:
Difficulty
Getting lost in huge mountain of information.
Where The Persona meet this difficulty?
At three places – search form, search results & in the tree itself
At three places – search form, search results & in the tree itself
Solution:
Search form – hiding some of the fields
Search form – hiding some of the fields
Search results – organized the results in cards display (not in a table) change some of the fields search to filters & changing the information giving for each result
Inside a tree – limited display of the number of generations, & showing only blood related.
The new design - family tree search form & search results
The new design - Family Tree
The research has helped us understand the needs of our users. Following the study was a total redesign of the site
The new design is totally different because the basic guidelines & undressing totally changed. That didn’t happen in one day & one sketch – it was long process that still happening & I very proud to be part of it.
The Open databases are free and open for every visitor - you are invited to visit
You are invited to learn more about the design process in these links - Designing family tree - Database design Part 2 & Museum database design Part 3
