My Work
Leading Discovery Research with Ukrainian Professors and Students
Senior User Experience Researcher and Designer, US Holocaust Memorial Museum
Project ran from January 2020 to October 2021
The museum had recently acquired a large collection of artifacts about the history of the Holocaust in Ukraine. Through a large grant, the museum hoped to engage professors and students with these collections and promote the study of the Holocaust at Ukrainian universities.
But, we knew very little about these audiences and their needs. I led Discovery research for this project. We began with online surveys, held in person research in Kyiv, Ukraine in February 2020, then pivoted to virtual research during the pandemic.
Research Goals
- Understand the needs of college students and professors in Ukraine, including technology and language requirements as well as knowledge gaps and interests
- Test prototypes to identify the right approach to this website
My Responsibilities
- Online surveys
- Stakeholder interviews
- Interviews with Ukrainian staff at the museum
- Facilitating design workshop with Ukrainian professors in Ukraine
- Designing prototypes for testing
- Modifying existing page templates in the Holocaust Encyclopedia to meet user needs
- Managed three contractors for the project
- Assisting contractors during focus groups, user interviews, virtual participatory design workshops, and participant recruitment
These contractors included:
- A user researcher who specializes in international, multilingual focus groups. I assisted facilitation of focus groups and interviews with professors and students in Ukraine.
- A Ukrainian-speaking user researcher for virtual prototype testing with professors. I guided the direction of prototype testing to ensure the museum's research goals were met.
- A Ukrainian recruitment firm to find participants for virtual research sessions. I reviewed participants to ensure a good research fit.
I led a design workshop with professors in Ukraine to brainstorm solutions for the problems identified in the focus groups.
Two online surveys were conducted to answer initial questions and inform in-person and virtual research sessions.
Prototypes were tested virtually using Miro to uncover insights from Ukrainian professors and students.