Project Overview

The purpose of this project was about putting together all that we had learned so far into a real life project with real clients, stakeholders, and users! My team and I were in charge of identifying how to best apply our UX knowledge and skills, scoping out the project and deliverables.

Black Cemeteries Overview

The Black Cemeteries is an app powered by Kinkofa for discovering, documenting, and preserving the legacy of Black ancestry. The function of this app is to allow the Black community to uncover their family history without having to go through other companies and to collaborate with each other to honor the legacy of their ancestors.

My Contributions

While working on Black Cemeteries I contributed to the competitive analysis and helped design the mid-fi and high-fi mockups.

The Design Team

Gloriah Oh - Project Manager

Robert Chacon - UX/UI Designer

Carolyn Hamilton - UX/UI Designer

Natalie Darako - UX/UI Designer

Cristian Fajardo - UX/UI Designer

Tools

Figma, Miro, Canva Slides

  • Design Team

    Gloriah Oh - Project Manager

    Robert Chacon - UX/UI Designer

    Carolyn Hamilton - UX/UI Designer

    Natalie Darako - UX/UI Designer

    Cristian Fajardo - UX/UI Designer

  • My Contributions

    Affinity Mapping

    Competitive Analysis

    Mid-Fidelity Wireframes

    High-Fidelity Wireframes

    Group Presentation Slides

  • Tools

    Figma

    Miro

    Canva Slides

Initial Interviews

My group then conducted user interviews of members of Kinkofa who have been doing their own research of Black cemeteries so that we could get a better understanding of what sparked their interest in genealogy work, what resources they use to do their research, and any positive points or negative points that they encounter as they do their research. We learned that 2/3 of users we drawn into genealogy due to speaking with other family members (usually elderly) about their ancestors. We also learned that some of the tools that they used to aid in their research included Ancestry.com, FindAGrave.com, FamilySearch.com, and local libraries. Lastly, we received feedback from the interviewees that highlighted the following positive and negative points of the resources they use:

  • Positive Points

    + Easy to use on desktop

    + Started their research off or thanks to these apps

    + Can find leads

    + Users liked that you can see family tree

    + Users used these apps as jumping off points to start their research

  • Negative Points

    - Prefer the desktop version over mobile

    - Can't see certain information on mobile, such as family trees

    - A large amount of documentation is behind paywalls

    - Some of the information ended up being false leads

Competitor Analysis

Our group also completed a competitor analysis of Black Cemetery’s main competitors (see below) and we were able to identify the following key features and key considerations:

  • Find A Grave

  • Billion Graves

  • Cemetery Find

  • US Gen Web

  • Names in Stone

  • Key Features

    Create a memorial

    Upload & transcribe photos

    Search burial records & cemeteries

    Forum access

    Give flowers

  • Key Consideartions

    Memorial management

    Preventing mischievous behavior

    Connecting with other users

    Platform Responsive (mobile, tablet, desktop)

Persona

Name: Tracy Johnson

Location: New Orleans, LA

Age: 45

Occupation: African American History

Bio

Tracy is an African American history professor at Xavier University of Louisiana. She has a passion for African American studies and its preservation. She is very interested in genealogy and realized that in order to get legitimate genealogy findings there needs to be a proper resource for death certificates and memorials. She doesn’t mind spending time researching and sharing her research as a free resource to the Black community.

Goals

  • Tracy would like an app that would allow her to record and share memorials of her deceased family members

  • Tracy wants to find out is she has any distant relatives using death records

  • Tracy wants to give back to her community by going to cemeteries, learning how to clean headstones, and recording old records

  • Tracy would like to find other like-minded people and help create a database of information for the Black community

Frustrations

  • Tracy finds it challenging to access public records

  • A lot of older cemeteries do not have records and the gravesites have been abandoned or desecrated

  • Tracy keeps hitting a paywall on other apps to access more information about her family

  • Has been given false information and leads that result in dead ends for her research

Task Flows

Keeping Tracy in mind, our group focused on designing 3 key features for our target user:

  • Upload a memorial

  • Search for a person’s memorial in a specific cemetery

  • Give virtual flowers and browse who else has given virtual flowers on a memorial

We needed to consider the best and shortest path for each flow as well as consider the best platform to design for before starting our mid-fidelity ketches to brainstorm solutions.

 

Progressive Website App (PWA)

Our group then needed to decide if we wanted to make this app a Native App, Web Responsive Site, or a PWA. We had to consider which platform would be best given the following features: Multi Platform Capability, SEO Indexed, Low Cost, GPS Enabled, and Offline mode. Based on our research, we concluded that creating a PWA was the best choice for our client and users.

Sketches and Mid-Fi Prototype

Once our group conclude that we create a PWA, we were then able to make sketched wireframes based on the Task Flows and then created a mid-fi prototype of Black Cemeteries

 
 
 

Usability Testing Phase #1

All users that were part of phase #1 testing had experience with genealogy and were familiar with app competitors of Black Cemeteries.

 

Tasks

Task 1: You have never used the kinkofa app before so you want to create an account and then create a new memorial for your aunt. Show me how you would do that.

Task 2: Your research showed that your relative Eugenia Johnson was buried at Cypress Grove Cemetery. Locate her burial plot number.

Task 3: You want to pay your respects to Eugenia Johnson. Leave virtual flowers and a message for her.

Task 4: You want to see who else has left flowers and a message for Eugenia. Find out who else has left her flowers and a message and browse that profile.

 

Results

Top takeaways are as follows:

  • All users completed tasks within the allotted time frame of 5 mins

  • Users had difficulty with “Save for later” vs “Preview”

  • Users informed us that they wanted to upload other types of documents besides obituaries

  • Users informed us that not all graves have a plot number

Iteration #1

Several users thought they had to click “Save for Later” in order to preview the memorial. To mitigate the confusion, we put the “Preview” button at the top and the “Save for Later” into a link. We did this to create a hierarchy and to help guide the users to continue with the user flow.

Another change we implemented in this page was to swap “Add Obituary” with “Add More Documents” dropdown. Several users informed us that besides the obituary, they wanted to include other types of documents to upload, such as death certificates.

 

Initially we had the GPS coordinate just for the cemeteries, but users informed us that unfortunately not all graves are properly marked. Often times when looking for a relative’s grave they would have to go off of general directions such as “The grave is by the tree near the rear.” Because of this pain point, we decided to include GPS coordinate as an option if the grave wasn’t properly marked. A benefit of this app being a PWA, users will be able to use geolocation to get the GPS coordinate whiles they’re uploading memorials at the site.

Usability Testing Phase #2

For phase #2 testing, users tested we those that had experience in genealogy as well as those that had no experience. This allowed us to get different perspectives as well as letting us know how well our prototype was functioning.

 

Tasks

Task 1: You have never used the kinkofa app before so you want to create an account and then create a new memorial for your aunt. Show me how you would do that.

Task 2: Your research showed that your relative Eugenia Johnson was buried at Cypress Grove Cemetery. Locate her burial plot number.

Task 3: You want to pay your respects to Eugenia Johnson. Leave virtual flowers and a message for her.

Task 4: You want to see who else has left flowers and a message for Eugenia. Find out who else has left her flowers and a message and browse that profile.

Results

Top takeaways are as follows:

  • Users stated that the background doesn’t distract from the content

  • A visually impaired user stated that they were able to navigate the app with easy.

  • Users were confused by the “flower icon” in the Given Flowers page

  • We discovered that the users couldn’t tell that the ellipses below Eugenia Johnson had an actual function rather than be a decoration

Iteration #2

Several users were confused by the flower icon and weren’t exactly sure of its function. We then decided to replace the flower icon with the profile picture of the person that had given the flowers so that users would be able to know that they can click on the profile picture and be taken to that person’s profile.

 

To the right of Eugenia Johnson’s name we added a star icon and removed the ellipses below her name. The star icon allows users to bookmark the memorial and view at a later time. The ellipses represented more options for the users to select from but we found that most users could not tell this had a function.

We also changed cemetery’s name (in this case Cypress Grove Cemetery) to be blue to indicate to the users that this was a link to the cemetery’s profile page.

Style Guide

Font Assistant is our main font. One of the reasons we went with this font is because it’s free and open source licensed, so if Black Cemeteries needs to expand in future years, there’s no need for concerns with licensing.

Throughout the app’s background, users will see a brick theme design elements that was inspired by mud cloth textiles.

The color palette for the app was derived from bringing inspiration from the Afro culture of being lively, dynamic, and vivid.

High Fidelity Mockup

Based on the usability feedback we received from users, we were able to implement the changes and create the high fidelity mockup below. Please feel free to click through the mockup using this link.

Next Steps

While our group focused on building out 3 key features for this app, we recommend exploring the following options for future iterations:

  • Add location notes to memorials

  • Add headstones status rubric

  • Add notifications tab to inform users about new activity or updates to the app

  • Provide for users who do not have experience using genealogy and memoral apps