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Action Racket Theatre Re-Imagined: Project 4—3.5 Weeks
(Real-World Project, personally realized)

This project takes on special meaning for me, as it is a realworld project involving a longtime friend and colleauge in the theatre world, and my sister, both of whom are co-founder/directors of Action Racket Theare.

 

Action Racket Theatre, founded by co-directors Lois Kagan Mingus and Joanie Fritz Zosike in 1998, conducts theatre workshops and performs at a large variety of venues in New York City. The workshops are aimed at toddlers, ‘tweens, teens, adults and seniors and provide diverse communities, including people with disabilities, an outlet for their creative expression and social concerns.

 

Our project goal is to completely re-imagine and modernize their web site, using user experience design techniques. The final product, a high fidelity clickable prototype of the site will act as a blueprint to realize the new design in the months to come.

My Final Product—High Fidelity Clickable Prototype
How I Got There
A Point of Reference—the Original Home Page
Comparative Analysis

Because the notion of competition is common parlance in the business world, one might ask why I use the term “comparative”, rather than “competitive” analysis. I choose this term because in all my work I am seeking out a model of cooperation rather than competition. I believe this is a model from which the business world would greatly benefit. This model is also arguably more in keeping with the kind of work for which Action Racket Theatre is known. Following are several organizations whose purpose overlaps that of the company.

Survey Restricted to Site Owners

In a survey restricted to the site owners, I was able to clarify the project requirements on the criteria of needed featuresmust have features, and wish list features. The must have features we determined included:

 

  • Reorganization of site contents

  • Clarity

  • User Interaction via subscriber list

  • Inclusion of video clips

  • Minimal and clean animated effects

Two Additional Surveys

Two additional user surveys were conduct, one within the community of my colleagues at NYU Polytechnic School of Engineering, and another directed at friends and colleagues within the arts who represented a good sampling of likely visitors to the site. The aggregate total of survey respondents between the two was 21 people. By and large, the surveys differed chiefly in the fact that the one addressed to my friends and arts colleagues used language more appropriate to lay people.

 

Important Findings are shown below:

For further information on the surveys and their analysis, please refer to the project booklet, both viewable and downloadable from this page.

Paper Prototypes
User Personas

Ciao-xing, Single Mother/Graduate Student, 27 years old

User Testing

The users shown above are testing a third iteration prototype. Some key observations led to notable changes for the better in user experience design, as shown below in a before and after screenshot of the third to fourth iteration prototype.

A problem area addressed in the above before-after screenshot was the bright color scheme present in the vertical persistent navigation bar.

 

In total, there were eight user testers whose invaluable input was received at various iterations leading up to the sixth and final iteration. For more details on these tests, please see the project booklet viewable and downloadable on this page.

Chosen User Flow
Final Site Map
Action Racket Theatre Re-Imagined Project Booklet

View/Download Project Booklet (includes fully annotated wireframes)

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