This week, after processing all the information from the Key Insights, I started to write out the requirements for the project.
From these requirements, I started to layout some ideas for the wireframes. The users that were interviewed were very open with their needs, what they would ask and would like to see laid out in response to these needs.
I wanted to begin with a simple navigation and a hero image. The hero image would house an opening article and below it, a call to action for one of the main reasons for the project. The question to my main users: “New to plant Medicine”? and the Call To Action: Start Here.
Another section I wanted to put here is the Video Gallery. I debated many times where to place this, at the end, I decided to place other Featured Articles, in this area. Then I placed a News section and below that the Video Gallery.
After the Video Gallery, I placed a small section that says: “Expand your knowledge about Indigenous Wisdom” and a Call To Action that says: View Workshops
This section is meant for people who are NOT new to Plant Medicine who, if they come to this website, they will find something interesting to read.
After I sent the wireframes to my users, I received great feedback.
USER 1 said:
• I love it, I think this is really important
• Have you gotten the domain? – and IG FB and Twitter?
• Will there be a page About. who is the creator?
• Who is behind this website, how do I know that everything they recommend is safe.
• Who made this website and how do I know that the recommendations on this website are authentic, legitimate, trusted and safe.
• Is there some kind of way to build trust as ‘authority’ in the field, a figure in the field, to build trust for the people who did this website. How can they know that this website is legit and that it means what it says and says what they mean
• Aesthetic:
– It’s very clean, looks very professional, the colors, I can’t wait to see the end product from what I see so far.
– That’s the way to go, At the end of the day these plants are medicine and in a way they are doctors so I think it’s good to make the website look professional, but it can become too cold, and once the photos are placed I think they will bring the colors, and warmth and the humanity and all the different kinds of healers and all the different tribes and all the different beautiful kinds of traditional wear.
It feels like a lot of information, I feel it’s a lot of information, I would just say to keep everything categorized and you are, its more feedback.
This website offers so much , I love the enthusiasm, I’m almost wondering if you want to go back to your main intention and be super succinct, and go through the information and ask yourself: is this aligned? is this aligned? because it’s just so much information. Maybe that’s good, i’m not saying to delete anything, but just check in with every category and ask if it’s aligned with your original intention and why you’re doing this, because maybe there will be something that you’ll cut out or maybe not, but my feedback is that I don’t know where to start.
This was GREAT FEEDBACK. I realize that I do have a lot of areas that need more work and maybe I will scale back. I was debating a lot about this, but after speaking with Prof. Ewing today, it will probably be so and maybe in future iterations I can continue to add other elements to the site.
USER 2 had really great feedback as well, Here are some thoughts from that conversation:
I love the design that you created, I loved the concept.
I am going to give you some thought provokers
From a UI UX perspective it serves the purpose of the users and the audience
So I want to ask who the content will come from which I am sure you have already considered and then, what is the purpose and the reason for the users to interact?
I think something very relevant that is happening Pharmaceuticals are targeting the audience with their understanding of illness
I don’t know if you are considering something this way, it’s a pivot in how we look at wellness and I think there is an opportunity here when you’re talking about plant medicine and indigenous wisdom, to look at it from the perspective of the western view of medicine and the eastern view of medicine and the indigenous view of medicine.
The viewers who are your users, say indigenous or someone who is experiencing different things – there is a holistic view of wellness, so I think what the plants help us achieve are a few things: the spiritual aspect, the physical wellbeing aspect, and of course the emotional and mental component, so I wonder if you were to cater to users in some way serving them an opportunity to interact, like giving them a reason to interact, asking themselves some of the main questions – this gets into the content – because if you were to describe, I guess you can imagine how I would have an audience, let’s say someone in the states – a first world country – someone facing a lot of depression and anxiety – these illnesses of the mind, and lacking the understanding of fulfilling the soul and finding joy and understanding.
Maybe there’s some opportunity on that landing page experience where you can tag content based on these categories, which changes how we look at things, in the western world where we look at symptoms, like insomnia, anxiety, depression, backache, injuries, trauma, maybe spin it on the positive, and talk about an experience where you’re getting users in a digital space where it allows someone to grow spiritually, and connect with inner child, or work on my pain related to my father, mother, sisters & brothers, it’s a little controversial because of how we look at things, we look at them through the symptoms. But we’re not really looking at what’s the origin, and the understanding of who we are. There’s a lot of sciences around this – I don’t know if you ever took a look at the Genesis of Identity from the Landmark Forum, so there’s some opportunity to look at how we understand ourselves. If you look at making the content direct in this way to users, I think it’s very powerful because then it could challenge people reading into the content.
Let’s say someone is a leader, a medicine person, in the jungle or the mountains, there are all these medicine people out there and so many indigenous wisdom from so many cultures, but the variety is very unique and special to each culture but the medicine serves it’s healing intelligently if that makes sense. So if we were to talk about what is to be achieved to the user, marking those things would be a beautiful way to approach it and it bridges the wisdom of many native plants and from many different cultures from around the world, and it’s something relatable, to anyone from a country in the states to a third country like Bolivia, as an example.
Maybe introducing some of these ideas in the UI and how to design that expression of wellness and navigating the knowledge to achieve the wellness.
How can we interact and rethink how we can experience ourselves and how this can be shown in a digital space.
This was incredible feedback! it instantly gave me a lot of ideas that I want to run by Prof. Ewing, like: Can I create a cloud of tags where they would lead to certain Articles or Videos related to those and based on these ‘ailments’ or ‘trauma’ create a more customized experience for the user.
I really liked hearing these suggestions from this user. I will think about a possible solution for this and see how it can be implemented into the landing page.
