Redesigning the user experience for the NYC Park website to cater to people with kids*.
-Website re-design-
Duration
4 months
Team
4 Designers
Role
User Research, Concept generation, Prototyping,
Wireframing, User Journey, User Testing, Optimal, UI Design
Client
N/A
OVERVIEW
A semester-long project where we explored and broke down the exiting website of NYC Parks. Problems were identified and solutions were designed in the areas of filters, labeling and organization of the sites information architecture.
BRIEF
By identifying the users of the NYC govs park page, redesign it to make it more digestible for the target audience*.
Target audience chosen: People with Kids*.
*After doing field study, interviews and surveying, we identified a group of users who relied on the website for information about the park. We found that nannies, parents and caretakers of children often relied on the website to plan their visit.
SECONDARY RESEARCH
Identifying the Problem
NYC has over 1,700 parks. Having options of this variety makes it harder for users to find which parks to visit. The current website is a repository of all the parks but it lacks a proper information architecture among many other things. We came up with a 'How Might We' statement to help guide us with our problem-solving.
"How might we efficiently show these options and the supporting information to enable decision-making without overwhelming the user?"
Understanding the context
Doing a general review of the website, we are able to find elements that are adding to the user experience or making it more difficult to perform the task. A few of the problems that were identified were with the navigation system, the organization of content and the context of information that is displayed.
Fig. NYC Parks review
PRIMARY RESEARCH
User Research
For this study, we performed 18 interviews, observations and conducted a survey. We selected 2 parks in 2 boroughs of New York. This is what we found.
We also found that parks can be a social place for kids and parents where small communities are formed.
Intuitive
People are looking for a low-effort and highly intuitive platform.
Age
Child's age is a big factor influencing a park visit
Location
People want to visit the parks that are closer to their location. They generally don't want o travel far distances.
Safety
Safety concerns about the quality and state of play areas remain a motivational factor for visiting parks
With the help of our research, we created user personas, user journeys, and story boards. These tasks allowed us to build on who the user is as well as the requirements they have with the website.
Fig 1. User Journey & Story board
RESEARCH ANALYSIS
Synthesis & Iterations
We began by conducting a competitive review of 5 websites- findyourpark ,nps, japannationalparks, brooklynbridge, and nparks. By doing this, we were able to identify features that were pros and cons within each of these websites. We were also able to look into the way navigation, labeling and organization was followed by other systems.
Our team reviewed 5 competitors’ websites in order to establish guidelines for our design by analyzing the pros and cons of each website.
Our study evaluated the performance of each competitor site based on their- Homepage, Navigation, Organization, Links & labels, Search, Content, Appearance, Images & Icons, Responsive design, Accessibility, Location, Map.
Findings:
- Realised the importance of Tone in the wording
- Interactive elements made the page more engaging
- Labeling should be straightforward.
- User more imagery to grab attention.
Fig: Competitive Analysis
ITERATION
Fine-tuning the design
We identified the faults in our design from our user-testing, card sorting, and tree-testing results.
1. For the ‘Events’ Page, we tested out 2 filter systems, a horizontal one for a broad search and a vertical one for a more specified filtering . With the user-testing, we found that the Horizontal filter was favored by majority of the users.
2. Since safety was a concern for parents, we added a safety rating to the parks page. During testing, we found that the icon's functionality was unclear. After more iterations, we found the icon with accompanying text was the most successful and easy to understand.
WIREFRAMING
Responsive Design
While wireframing, we made sure to create designs which were responsive and could be accessed by both desktop and mobile without missing elements or having a break in the flow.
Fig. Wireframes - Homepage & Events
PROTOTYPING
High Fidelity Mockups
Home Page
Events Page
A few features of the events page:
Task 1: Find an event for you to go with your child.
Step 1: Arrive at the home page.
Step 2: Hover on Events from the Navigation bar then choose “Kid Friendly”.
Step 3: Set more filters.
Step 4: From the new search results, select an event (Holiday Lighting) that interests you.
Step 5: If the event requires an RSVP, fill in your details.
Task 2: Find a park to take your dog for a walk
Step 1: Arrive at the home page.
Step 2: Go to Parks from the Navigation bar.
Step 3: Set filters to show dog parks in the area.
Step 4: From the new search results, select the park (Bryant park) to visit.
Want to play in the park?
Explore the prototype yourself!
CONCLUSION
Reflection
Within this project, my favorite part was the competitive analysis and how we did not restrict ourselves to only websites within New York or the United States, but we looked at websites from around the world, which gave us a better metric to evaluate.
Overall, the final product performed well after accommodating the challenges within the initial concepts. The users loved the new navigation and helps promote faster decisions!
Future scope:
We would be fleshing out the 'Maps' portion of the website to allow the users to browse in a more free and unrestricted manner, enabling them to find parks that are location-based.
