Exploratorium Website Redesign
Overview:
The Exploratorium is hands-on museum of science, art, and human perception. Their website was one of the first 600 websites to launch on the web and has had a strong online presence since 1993. The site receives more than 900,000 visits per month. Their goal is to deliver engaging educational content that support a culture of experimentation and collaboration.
Pitch:
The Exploratorium is redesigning their website. Their objective is to improve educator’s experience locating content relevant to their teaching objectives. Our goal is to simplify the effort to search and consume relevant material across a variety of sources. As an educator visiting the Exploratorium website, they:
• Look for materials, activities, and ideas to improve their teaching and lesson plans
• Browse the Explore section for activities
• Rely heavily on search to source content
• Often revisit resources they have used before
The Problem:
Educators need a way to find educational resources and activities available on the Exploratorium website because they want ideas on how to improve their lesson plans and teaching style to align with Next Generation Science Standards.
Insights:
1. The Explore and Education sections on the website did not contain what the visitors expected.
• “[Entering Explore section]…I expected a lot of it in Education but it's not. Blogs really surprises me. Websites really surprises me. I would have expected them to be under Education.” -Debora, Teacher
• “[Entering Explore section]…I expected a lot of it in Education but it's not. Blogs really surprises me. Websites really surprises me. I would have expected them to be under Education.” -Debora, Teacher
2. Users are overwhelmed by the amount of content on the site and it is difficult to find content easily and tailored to their needs.
• “I kind of saw that the website is almost reflective of those values of discovery. There's just so much to look at and maybe just be open-minded to see what's going on but there's a lot of information.” -Scott, Teacher
3. Users are having trouble understanding the context of the content on the site.
• “Once I searched the topic I had a boatload of connected links. It might have been helpful to have further filters to narrow the topic or separate the links by type such as video or interactive, etc.” -Unnamed Teacher
• “Once I searched the topic I had a boatload of connected links. It might have been helpful to have further filters to narrow the topic or separate the links by type such as video or interactive, etc.” -Unnamed Teacher
Design Recommendations:
New information architecture and navigation
• Primary topical and secondary sub-navigation allows users to tailor the experience based on personal needs
• Rename Explore to Learn will provide clarity
• Add breadcrumbs to orient the user
Content hierarchy and context
• Create iconography to provide visual context and reinforce the new navigational structure
• Hover features clarify what content the user is consuming
• Related content recommendations will increase users time on site
Advanced search tools and filters
• Tools needed to search and filter by content type, grade level, subject and sub-topic
• Advanced search functionality reduces the users effort creating a more convenient and accurate experience
Navigation Recommendations:
After conducting open and closed card sorts we developed 2 navigation taxonomies for the new sitemap:
• Categorize first by subject
• Categorize second by content type
We created and tested our user flows (see above) based on our new sitemap (see right) to ensure the site is functional and aligns to our target user needs. The user can complete the journey by starting with subject or content.
