Boulder County Arts Alliance User Research
CompanyBoulder County Arts Alliance
Role
UX Researcher, designer
Tools
Figma, UserInterview.com, Illustrator
Boulder County Arts Alliance (BCAA) is an arts organization which stands as a cornerstone of the vibrant creative landscape of Boulder, Colorado.
They are 100% volunteer led and grant & donation run. BCAA is committed to nurturing and empowering local artists, focused on providing resources such as information and spaces to for locals- artists and art enthusists to gather.
Challenge
Importance
Solution
BCAA would like to evaluate the attractiveness of their website in addition to its usefulness and navigability. They are particularly interested in how its design impacts attracting and retaining members.
The website is essential for community engagement and resource distribution. Enhancements can significantly improve accessibility and increase active participation.
Our team conducted heuristic analysis and user interviews to understand what areas of BCAA’s website are working well and what areas could be improved.
Project Plan
We began our research working with BCAA to define their business and goals with user research, and aligned our research to meet their goals.
Evaluate the website’s functionality and attractiveness based on similar nation-wide arts organizations and local competitors.
Uncover insights about users (habits, behaviors, and motivations, how they learn about BCAA) and help define who the target user group(s) could be
Identify what’s working + what could be improved about their website
attractiveness and usefulness and navigability.
attractiveness and usefulness and navigability.
Research Methods
Heuristic Evaluation
Our goal for the heuristic evaluation process was to create a scorecard of best practices for non-profit websites to compare BCAA to their local competitor, Dairy Arts Center, in three key areas:
Heuristic Evaluation Scorecards
Our team evaluated the BCAA website vs the Dairy Arts Center’s (the local competitor) website and graded them both based on our Heuristic scorecard in 5 main catagories of the website that the our website analytics research found the most trafficked or most important:
-Event Calendar
-Opportunities Bulletin
-Grants Page
-Member Directory
-Navigation
-Event Calendar
-Opportunities Bulletin
-Grants Page
-Member Directory
-Navigation
User Interviews
Our goal for the heuristic evaluation process was to create a scorecard of best practices for non-profit websites to compare BCAA to their local competitor, Dairy Arts Center, in three key areas:
Our team conducted five separate 45 minute interviews with Colorado locals on Userinterviews.com centered around 3 research questions, and involved users with several tasks revolved around the most important aspects of the BCAA Website.
Research QuestionsWhat do users find valuable?
What do users find confusing?
What met / did not meet expectations?
User Tasks
Grant Programs
Event Calendar
Opportunity Bulletin
Member Directory
Based on the insights and findings from our research, and although it was outside of the scope of our project, we wanted to provide BCAA with a design prototype of what a final design would be.
Since then, we have been hired by BCAA to completely redesign their current website and are currently working with their organization to finish the project by Decemeber 2024!
Since then, we have been hired by BCAA to completely redesign their current website and are currently working with their organization to finish the project by Decemeber 2024!