Practicum Experience: What’s New With Our Upcoming Website
This summer, I had an amazing experience working for the St. Clair West Oral History Project. As a Master of Information student specializing in User Experience Design at the University of Toronto, this project not only fit my interest in learning about different cultures but also provided me with an opportunity to explore the usability of website design in the real world.
As an international student studying in Canada, I really appreciated the excellent opportunity to join this meaningful project. From learning about the project and exploring the website, I listened to many interesting oral stories about the neighbourhood on St. Clair West. The stories shared also made me think of my personal experience of growing up in a small town in China. Just like Kathleen Dunphy said in her story, “[her kids] knew every child within a two-mile radius.” I had the same experience! However, memories often fade. It was great to be a part of such a worthwhile project recording the oral stories shared of a neighbourhood. This website is a powerful tool for learning the history of life and sharing valuable memories with the present, and future generations of the St. Clair West neighbourhood.
Taking the opportunity of working as a Practicum student for the St. Clair West Oral History Project, I worked with Gianina Romas, another Practicum student, to optimize the existing Oral History website’s user-friendliness. At the beginning of the project, we worked together for one month to improve the user experience when accessing the site through both desktop and mobile websites. We found that the current website is well-designed with clear visual images and user-friendly functions. For example, the website has many photos, and almost every page has a “BACK TO TOP” button for you to go back to the top of the page, which are really useful and easy to navigate.
By integrating and applying what we learned from school to the workplace, we conducted a heuristic evaluation and a tree test to explore potential usability issues that might confuse users when accessing the site and provide recommendations for improving the mobile-version website and the menu bar. After completing two collaborative tasks, Gianina and I worked independently for the rest of the summer to complete different tasks. I focused on exploring methods and implementing changes to optimize the search functions, integrate videos on the homepage, and link the “Discover St. Clair” app on site. Throughout the project, I learned how to address users’ needs in locating information across the website and how to provide achievable recommendations for enhancing user experience in navigating the site. Through working with web designers and other committee members to implement improvements, I also gained the working knowledge of website design and learned how to communicate effectively at work.
All the recommended features and changes have been implemented to our new version website, which will be released in the upcoming weeks. Can’t wait to see the new website? Don’t worry. You can be the first to know what’s new with our upcoming St. Clair West Oral History website. Here are some features you will see in our future release:
Search Function - You will find a search function on the navigation bar, which helps you search for information through the entire site without leaving your pages.
Upcoming Search Function in the Navigation Bar
“Discover St. Clair” App page - You will find a new page called “Discover St. Clair App” under the “Explore St. Clair West” in the menu bar. You can directly access and navigate to the “Discover St. Clair App” on our site without leaving the page and opening a new window.
Upcoming “Discover St. Clair” App page in the Primary Navigation
Help Guide Page - You will find a new page called “Help Guide” in the bottom navigation bar, which helps you search for specific information and quickly access the site’s popular content.
Upcoming Help Guide page in the Bottom Navigation
I hope these upcoming features might help you visit our St. Clair West Oral History website. If you want to see more features on our website, please feel free to let us know!
- Yaxian, Master of Information Student at the University of Toronto