Yale School of Art
Project Overview: The Yale School of Art has commissioned a redesign of five key pages on their current website. The objective is to enhance the overall user experience by improving navigation, layout, and usability while ensuring compatibility with mobile devices to better serve a diverse and growing audience.
Role: UX Researcher, UX/UI Designer
Original Site
UX Research
Overview(User Research)
The Yale School of Art primarily attracts highly motivated, emerging artists who seek advanced education in fine arts. These prospective students are typically recent graduates from undergraduate art programs, looking to refine their craft, explore new media, and engage with a dynamic, experimental learning environment.
- 62% of students identify as people of color—the highest percentage among Yale’s professional schools.
- Gender distribution is fairly balanced, with approximately 50-60% female and 40-50% male students.
- The average student is between 26-30 years old, though the range spans from early 20s to mid-30s.
- Fine art students and professionals gravitate toward brands that offer high-quality creative tools and technology, including: Apple, Nikon/Canon, Adobe Creative Suit
Design Solution
- I focused on creating a structured yet expressive digital experience that reflects the Yale School of Art’s creative identity.
- To keep navigation intuitive, I designed a clean, streamlined menu that makes it easy to explore student work, faculty projects, and admissions details.
- Accessibility was a priority—I implemented high-contrast typography, screen reader compatibility, and responsive scaling to ensure an inclusive experience.
Persona #1
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Persona #2
Design Process
Sitemap
Wireframes
Once my research was completed, the ideas and features were presented via wireframes below:
Final Design
The final design keeps things clean, intuitive, and visually engaging while staying true to the school’s experimental nature. Navigation is streamlined, making it effortless to explore student work, faculty projects, and admissions details. High-impact visuals and a flexible grid system give the site an artistic feel without sacrificing usability. With accessibility improvements and a responsive layout, the experience is now seamless, inspiring, and built for all users.
Key Takeaways
Challenges
- Simplifying navigation without stripping away the site’s artistic personality.
- Creating a flexible layout that allows for both structure and creative freedom.
- Accessibility was a major focus
Key Takeaways
- Balancing structure and creativity was crucial, keeping the site intuitive.
- Navigation needed a complete overhaul to make content easier to find without overwhelming users.
- Trying to organize the many pages and links the site had.