Anthology Film Archives: A Case Study 

The Behind the Scenes Design team is dedicated to creating attractive and easy-to-use digital interfaces.  Consisting of Caroline Evanson, Allie Malinovskis, and Greg Chaputt, who are graduate students at Pratt Institute’s School of Information.  We were assigned to redesign a small website in Craig McDonald's Information Architecture and Interaction Design course from a user experience design perspective. 
An international center for the preservation, study, and exhibition of film and video, with a particular focus on independent, experimental, and avant-garde cinema, the Anthology Film Archives' (AFA) site has two separate yet equally important aspects, a focus on both the Film Screenings as well as the Collections. 

​The Behind the Scenes Design team has conducted user-centered research in order to propose a complete redesign of the site.  Beginning with with discovery research to better understand our users, our findings ultimately influenced our re-design of the Anthology Film Archives website resulting in digital prototypes representing our suggestions for a better structured and more functional user experience.   
Research 
We began our research process by first evaluating the present state of the AFA website.  Currently there the Film Screenings section is represented by a calendar that is linked to one extensive page in list form, which includes basic film information, a short synopsis and screening times.


The Collections section is still in the developmental stages.  Categorized by medium type, the Stills section is organized by either film title or filmmaker with the option to search the collection by keyword.


Other sections, such as Film/Video, is only expressed only by a list of the films preserved by AFA, with no option to access more information about them.
​

After evaluating the content of the major sections of AFA's website, The Behind the Scenes Design team created a site map of each page.
By employing user centered research methods as well as information architecture and interaction design principles, the Behind the Scenes Design team has:


Understanding Users 
The Anthology Film Archives has two primary functions: it houses screenings of avant-garde films, and it serves as an archive of materials related to these films, including film clips, stills, books, periodicals, etc.  Based on these functions, we determined that the Anthology Film Archives’ website would attract users from these three groups:
  • New York city-based movie-goers
  • Film enthusiasts who are interested in doing research about films in the archive (for personal or professional research purposes).
  • Film scholars, particularly students and curators of film studies, who utilize the archive for scholarly research
The Behind the Scenes Design group conducted user research through the use of survey questions and personal interviews with users from each of the above user groups.  Utilizing the collected research, we created three personas who represent the target users for the Anthology Film Archives website. All proposed design changes were made with these three users in mind.

Based on our findings, we created user personas representing members from each of these groups.

Card Sort 
To evaluate the effectiveness of the Anthology Film Archives website’s navigation structure, the Behind the Scenes Design group conducted a card sorting study.  Using an open card sort method, six participants were asked to organize 39 current and proposed navigation elements into self-named categories with an online card sort tool.  Utilizing the analytics from Optimal Workshop’s card sort feature, Behind the Scenes Design used the similarity matrix and dendrogram charts to analyze our data we concluded the following insights:

  •  The existing primary navigation elements are strong
  •  Upcoming events should be emphasized
  •  The “About” and “Contact” can be merged
  • The online database and research instructions should be separated​

The best merge method was used in evaluating the card sort results using a dendrogram​ diagram, which makes assumptions about larger clusters based on individual pair relationships.

Using the insights from the Card Sort Study, we have proposed an updated Site Map for the Anthology Film Archives Site. Our changes to the site map are focused on highlighting the elements that users would look for when approaching the site, in particular the featured/upcoming events, the film calendar, and the archive’s database.
Paper Prototypes 
The Behind the Scenes Design team created paper prototypes by sketching a total of eight r screens, using pencils and sheets of plain white paper. Our sketches comprised of a redesigned homepage screen as well as selected second-level and third-level screens.  We then 
asked two users each to complete 2 different tasks using our paper prototypes by pointing to navigational buttons, search boxes, and other on-screen controls on our sketches and by describing their actions aloud.

Task #1:
We asked users to find out what film is playing at the AFA’s movie theater after 9:00 p.m. and to proceed to the buy page for this film.


Task #2:
We asked users to find the listing for the documentary Triumph of the Will by Leni Riefenstahl in the AFA’s library and to proceed to the checkout page for this film to request a private onsite screening of this film.

We then evaluated and identified usability problems and provide recommendations on potential solutions resulting in a revised version of the our proposed Film Anthology Archive site map and interactive digital wireframe prototypes.

Digital Prototype 

​Based on our discovery research and usability testing results, the Behind the Scenes Design team developed interactive digital prototypes in order to create the aforementioned tasks.  These wireframes demonstrate a more straightforward and concisely organized website for both the ticketing process as well as the collections in order for all users obtain the information that they seek.  

Interactive Wireframes