Oswego Bystander

Abstract: Oswego Bystander is a community outreach project which seeks to inspire civic awareness and involvement in Oswego, NY through the imagining of a derelict future Oswego. The project makes use of student-generated content to paint a picture of a community that has lost its cultural values.

As the UX Research Coordinator for the project, my focus was on user research and testing throughout the design process. I first assigned our team to conduct research on competitors and be able to explain their choices. We looked at HeForShe for their focus on a younger generation, The Atlantic for their focus on global awareness and Vox for their ability to cater to the millennial generation by providing quick and easy access to content.

After mocking up a workable prototype in Axure, user tests were conducted to determine the “find-ability” of information on the site. Users were presented with a wireframe mockup of the site to navigate through. There were 5 different tasks to complete including navigating home, finding the About page and information about the contributors. All of our participants were able to find the information they were asked to with little to no issues. The few problems they did have were with the nature of our site being wireframes rather than the full site.

Our final test was conducted after the site was complete. Here we asked users to evaluate the desirability of the site. Our users found the site to be easy to use, aesthetically pleasing and
presented information clearly. One aspect of the site that was confusing for some users was that the “Save Oswego” button lead them to the About page. The final destination for this button had not been fully implemented at the time, but has since been resolved.