Literary Journal Archive Design

Discovery

Through discussions with LOGOS board members and my own experience at the University of Rochester, I identified three user groups:

1. Primary user: users who would directly interact with the Journal website and content the most, for example LOGOS’ executive board and general members.
2. Secondary user: users who would directly interact with the Journal website less frequently, for example non-member students or faculty at the University.
3. Tertiary user: users who may not directly use the Journal website, but may use it to make decisions about the University/the Journal. This may include non-university affiliated users, funding body (Wilson Commons Students Association)

These user profiles were only estimates, so I conducted interviews with individuals from each group to better understand their needs. My goals were to:

• Identify the benefits of interacting with LOGOS in its current formats (Instagram, CCC, physical copies).
• Discover pain points, particularly repetitive or intensive tasks required to access the journal.
• Determine users’ priorities, including the information they seek, the actions they intend and those they actually take with LOGOS.

I interviewed 5 students with varying degrees of involvement with LOGOS – a current Logos exec member, a general member, 2 non-member students, and one high school student who’s starting the process of applying to colleges. I asked participants to describe their familiarity and their interactions with LOGOS, the information they need for these interactions and how they obtain information, as well as what they like or dislike about these interactions. I organized my findings about current LOGOS sites below.

Through these interviews, I am able to further refine my user personas. Instead of characterizing the personas based solely on levels of interactivity with the journal, these personas are defined by both levels of interactivity within the organization and familiarity with the organization.

• Primary users: Highly involved and familiar with the journal, such as LOGOS members and frequent contributors. They visit the site with specific tasks (e.g., updating archives, finding content) and know how to complete them, without exploring beyond their tasks.
• Secondary users: Less familiar with the journal, like first-time contributors and faculty. They visit with tasks in mind (e.g., submitting work, joining), but may need to explore the site for guidance.
• Tertiary users: Unfamiliar with the journal, such as prospective students or parents. They visit without specific tasks, likely to explore and gather general information.

Of course, these user personas overlap. A user may approach the site as a secondary user on one occasion, but as a primary user on another. It is important that the site’s functionalities are clearly legible to any site visitor.

Based on users’ target actions, I drafted a site map and feature summary.

Discovery Validation

With the requirements defined, I created paper mockups of the website to test. My main goal was to validate user flows, ensuring each page’s functionality was clear and that users weren’t confused by the site’s structure.

My key findings are below:

• The landing page design does not afford interaction. Only one user realized the logo in the middle can lead to different pages and information when clicked.
• The search functionality performed well, meeting users' expectations for finding artwork by title or specific issues by number.

First iteration wireframes

The next iteration of low-fidelity design addresses these issues.

• Revise landing page to connect to archive. The new landing page features an article or artwork as a way to invite interaction.

Updated landing page wireframes

I tested the revised paper prototype with 1 returning and 2 new participants. My goals were to validate changes and gather insights on search functionality. Key findings:

• Search insights: 2/3 users want to search by mediums (“looking for accepted works for inspiration”).
• New landing page: All users understood the layout, with 2 out of 3 interacting with the featured artwork.
• "About the Journal": Mixed feedback—users liked the timeline but didn’t stay long enough to absorb all information. I deferred changes to stakeholders.

Overall, the information architecture and user flow worked well, so I moved forward with this design.

Design

With my user flows validated, I began ideating on design. I drew inspiration from other archive/journal sites, noting design elements that aid with their archival functionality.

University of Chicago's journal site

William Blake Archive site

I also designed a design kit, including a color palette and font system, in collaboration with the LOGOS executive team. The fonts were selected for their free accessibility, as the site will be implemented in WordPress (which supports only Google Fonts) for easy future maintenance by the LOGOS team.

The mid-fidelity iteration of this design features some key design decisions:

• The Landing page invites interest by featuring artworks from the journal. Viewers can directly explore the archive from this view.

• The Archive page uses tags to describe the artworks. This summarizes the metadata of the artwork and guides users to explore similar objects.

• The Submission page uses a Google Form instead of a built-in site form to ensure information security and easy access by the LOGOS board.

• The “About Us” page features an interactive timeline that allows users to explore the journal’s history.

Design Validation

After developing a mid--fidelity prototype, I validated this prototype via user testing with 3 participants (all new users). I conducted a contextual inquiry where users are asked to explore the site in any order they want. My goal is to test whether the site’s visual design affords the level of interactivity that users expect.

Prototype for user testing (I didn't quite know how to use components in 2022)

I found that:

• Users found the arrows in the article view confusing. The left arrow led to the issue, and the right arrow to the archive, which didn’t match their expectations.
• All users (3/3) navigated to the correct pages for their goals, with no accidental clicks.
• One user didn’t realize the home page was clickable.

I revised the design to address these issues.

• I added a hover state to the home page button to emphasize interactivity.
• I revise the arrow system to fit with users’ expectations. Instead of relying on arrows, I used linked texts that clearly indicate the click’s destination

After these revisions were made, I handed off my prototype to the front-end developer and LOGOS board for development.