Context

Omeka S: Web-publishing platform for institutions to create digital exhibits

Omeka S is an open-source web publishing platform from Digital Scholar that assists cultural institutions building digital collections and online exhibits. It enjoys over 500,000 downloads and has built websites for a variety of libraries, archives, museums, scholars, and enthusiast users. Omeka’s goal is to enable museums, libraries, and archives to publish collections and narrative exhibits to the web as easily as one could launch a blog.

The Problem

Omeka S’s intimidating interfaces and complex navigation scare away users

Omeka is a well-known name in the libraries, institutions, museums, and collections fields. In fact, many educational institutions introduce Omeka to their students as a platform for their assignments & projects. Therefore, Omeka has a dependable system for user acquisition. However, user retention is a whole different story...

How might we reduce the technical obstacles and navigational friction users face while trying to build a website in order to increase user retention rates on Omeka S?

Roadmap: From outdated archive to exhibit-worthy site-builder!

Final Designs Preview

Omeka S: Easy, quick, and powerful site-building for all your exhibit needs

Newly-refreshed modern interface enjoyed by new users & long-time Omeka enthusiasts alike!

Build pages, exhibits, or digital stories by adding & mixing different content blocks.

Create a fully-outlined website with just a few clicks! Freely customize designs to your liking.

Why Design?

Omeka S wants to improve the usability of site-building features to increase number of active users and overall user engagement

However, the Omeka team have little past experience with formal UX research. This is where our team of UX design and research consultants come in! We hope to improve Omeka S by pinpointing and addressing current user pain points, as well as equip the Omeka team with new, innovative ideas to help bring Omeka S to new heights as a top-of-the-line cultural exhibits site-builder.

Base Product Usability Testing & User Research

Understanding how users currently engage with Omeka S

In order to better understand what pain points are driving users away, our team conducted usability testing on the current Omeka S platform. We gathered a pool of 12 testers consisting both current and new Omeka users, and all users must have a background in digital collections, libraries, museums, or other related fields.

We designed usability studies around the following tasks:
1. Create a new website for the institution you work/may work for
2. Add an image & text to a page for your website
3. Preview & publish your website page

We observed the main functionalities users generally engage with in order to build a website, and we noted any positive and negative experiences users encountered along the way. Our team planned to redesign essential interfaces to not only relieve those negative experiences, but also to build upon and further enhance the positive experiences too.

Why Design? Revisited

Main Insights from Base Product Usability Testing

Building a website is already a lot of work for users, but rather than relieving that load, Omeka S currently contributes to its issues

Although the Omeka team’s mission is to make publishing collections and narrative exhibits to the web as easy as possible, our usability testing results found that they are falling short. New & current Omeka S users face several usability issues that contribute to stresses and frustrations they already commonly face when trying to build a new website. So our team planned to first redesign Omeka S to relieve these usability issues, and then come up with ideas to drive long-term user retention.

Organizing Design Goals

Goals to improve usability & keep users from uninstalling Omeka S

Our team used testing insights to not only improve the overall usability of Omeka S, but also improve it in a way that will attract and retain new or returning Omeka users. With our usability testing and user research, we pinpointed common pain points and “moments of delight”. In order to plan how to solve pain points and amplify “moments of delight”, 4 design goals were brainstormed below:

Drafting & Ideating Solutions

Dreaming up new, innovative features that will revolutionize Omeka S as a top-of-the-line, powerful site-builder

Our team then brainstormed solution ideas that could address each of our 4 design goals. The solution ideas were incorporated into our re-designed prototype to be used and further refined through user testing.

Iterating Re-Design Prototypes with User Testing

Ensuring re-designed prototypes effectively answered users’ concerns

To test the effectiveness of our proposed solutions, we conducted user testing on each iteration of our hi-fi prototypes. We interviewed users to see if they could successfully create and publish a new website, as well as to check if our redesigns led to higher user retention rates and more positive impressions of Omeka S. We also wanted to pinpoint and address any new pain points users may encounter while using our newly-introduced functionalities.

1. Refresh UI and replace text with more visuals to ensure beginner-friendly interfaces

2. Empower innovative “do-it-yourself” users with onboarding support

3. Embed a “Live Edit” view with feedback to immediately show and inform users how their published page will look like

4. Introduce new “one-click site builder” generative features for even faster & easier site-building

Final Designs & Solution Overview

Omeka S: Easy, quick, and powerful site-building for all your exhibit needs

1. Newly-refreshed modern interface enjoyed by new users & long-time Omeka enthusiasts alike!

  • Refreshed, clean, and modernized UI design that exudes professionalism & reliability

  • New tutorial tool-tips will clearly guide you every step of the way

  • Bright visuals replace heavy text for less cognitive strain & easier navigation

2. Build pages, exhibits, or digital stories by adding & mixing different content blocks

  • “Live Edit” view so you can instantly know how your published will look

  • On-hover overlay on content blocks to help you understand the many functionalities Omeka S offers for your site

  • Easily preview, publish, or make private your website and web pages

3. Create a fully-outlined website with just a few clicks!

  • With just a few words & clicks, generate a website that matches your needs & vision

  • Option to auto-fill template with your own uploaded content

  • Freely swap out, rearrange, and customize text & elements to your liking

Try out the prototype below! Click “Add New Site” to get started.

Final Prototype: Try generating a website or build from scratch!

Next Steps & Impacts

Implementing our recommendations to bring back former Omeka S users

Due to time constraints, our consultation project had to come to a close after 9 weeks. Our team hopes that our re-design recommendations and new functionality ideas will inspire the Omeka S team to implement these changes in the future in order to transform Omeka S into the powerful, museum-worthy site builder we know it can be.

However, if I were to continue consultation for Omeka S, my next steps would include:

Takeaways

Adapting UX Design into UX Design Consulting

  1. Starting from scratch, collecting user metrics from the ground up — The Omeka team and Digital Scholar organization are committed to keeping Omeka S open-source and free from user data collection and tracking. That means, our UX consulting team had to work with minimal prior user research and metrics. We knew that user research and usability testing would be vital for tracking down major pain points and deciding what aspects of Omeka S should be prioritized in our re-design. It was interesting and eye-opening to see that users were experiencing frustrations in aspects that the Omeka team didn’t initially foresee, and is a further lesson into why proper user research & testing is so essential for creating user-centered experiences.


  2. Consulting vs. Designing — While working as a UX design consultant , I learned about the differences between consulting as an external designer versus ideating as an internal employee. Consultation can mean suggesting actions and changes to your client that they might believe to be outside their scope & capacity. But in doing so, we can encourage our client to broaden their world view and imagine the expansive possibilities & growth their product can experience. I believe this was a great learning experience for myself, to understand UX design from both internal and external perspectives.

    Thank you to my team members: Nikhil, Radhika, and Xinyao (Charlene) for the lively and imaginative team dynamic we had while working together on this project; to Taylor for guiding us in our journey to broaden Omeka S’s potential; and to Kim & the Omeka team at Digital Scholar for this opportunity to help create an inspiring and revolutionary product!

Thank you for reading!

Psst! Want to get a sweet treat and chat?
Reach me at: cm.chelseamai@gmail.com