This mobile-first web app prototype serves as a one-stop resource to students, prospective students, and faculty in the Notre Dame Department of Art, Art History, and Design. The name is inspired by the two-course sequence of 2D and 3D Foundations that AAHD students must take.
ND Foundations was designed mobile-first with an emphasis on ease of use and clear organization. The web app features clear typographic hierarchy, card-style interactive lists, and a color palette inspired by the Department's West Lake Hall, a hub for Design majors.
Users can navigate through six categories, each carefully designed and organized to present and filter large amounts of relevant information with minimal clicks.
In most of the categories, information is filterable by tabs and sub-tabs and displayed in card-based lists which. Each card features a 'show more' button that reveals additional information, and a prototyped 'share' button to save or send information via text and email.
The Facilities category allows users to learn more about specific rooms and their resources at the click of a button.
Users can quickly navigate between categories with the dynamic dropdown menu.
For the security of Notre Dame facilities, users are redirected through a prototyped Secure Login page before gaining access to the Passcodes page.
ND Foundations was developed in response to a course challenge to design a mobile web app for West Lake Hall, the design hub of the University of Notre Dame.
Before wire framing anything, we constructed a survey for Notre Dame students and faculty in the Department about their first experiences with West Lake Hall and what digital resources would help them succeed. In evaluating the results of over 30 responses, my partner and I realized that in order to maximize not just usability but also usefulness, we wanted to expand this prompt to encompass resources for the entire Department (not just Design).
We centered every design decision around our central users: students (of all years and experience in the Department), faculty, and prospective students. To evaluate the success of our platform, we created several fictional personas that captured traits and needs that were dominant in our survey results.
