Laurel Foote-Hudson

One of my favorite content strategy projects combined our team’s skills in both contextual design and systems analysis to aid Care Coordinators at UNC Chapel Hill’s Center for Maternal and Infant Health improve their electronic workflow and data collection methods.

Roles: Interviewer, Copy [deliverables, testing scripts], Data Modeler/Interpreter

Project Rundown:

After the creation of a research plan to guide our discovery period, our team used the next 10 weeks to collect and code impressions about the technical tools and workflow within the center from a wide range of stakeholders. This information was later displayed in an affinity diagram to capture common trends and patterns.

Through the use of a range of interviews , the documentation of work spaces, and plenty of engaging interpretation sessions, our team developed an extensive list of recommendations to improve and capture the crucial work Care Coordinators do. We presented our findings via physical, cultural, and flow models to help Center Leadership petition for extra funding and tools to facilitate the technological updates Care Coordinators needed.

Web Design/Development is a passion of mine that spurred my interest in User Experience. After working as a teaching assistant for both Computers and Society, and then as a teaching assistant for Web Design in the Department of Computer Science at UNC for 3 years, I enrolled in a Web Development Bootcamp. During my time, I collaborated with a diverse set of team members, leading to the development of “Fission”. Our web app targeted other new React.js developers, based on findings from surveys and other qualitative tools. I used these findings to note features and UI layouts which would target our audience drive the development of our app.

One of my more innovative projects is the chatbot/web app “Sylvie”. The 3D printing educational technology project “Sylvie” targets Rhetoric and Composition instructors at UNC who are interested in using 3D printing in their lesson plans as a way to meet new, digital literary-oriented learning objectives.

Roles: Prototypes, Programmer, Copy [testing scripts, layout], Project Manager, Learning Designer [lesson plans]

Project Rundown:

Despite strong interest in using the 3D printers among Composition Instructors at UNC, there were few (really no) centralized platforms to help inspire them to use this technology in their courses. Consultation spots with the Makerspace could be difficult to arrange and often instructors felt uninspired and out of place as “humanists” in a “tech” space. I decided to spend a semester investigating ways to help my peers gain inspiration online to “get them thinking” before attempting to setup consultations.

After conducting a competitor analysis, developing a research plan, and and conducting several contextual interviews and surveys to capture instructor thoughts and concerns, our team identified a series of writing instructor-specific concerns for a 3D printing lesson plan repository, as well as through impression of interactions with a chatbot.

Our team used this data to guide the iterative creation of our chatbot and website prototypes, which lead to the development of instructional taxonomies, content audits of competitor sites, user journeys and building affinity diagrams over the course of the semester. We conducted 2 rounds of observational user testing with several prototypes, and surprisingly had a large amount of instructors who volunteered to be participants!

At the end of the 16 weeks, we presented our findings to the Director of the Writing Program. Our meeting eventually lead to my creation of a 3D Printing Workshop taught in conjunction with the Makerspace on campus specifically for these Composition instructors, and an internal web space dedicated to connecting instructors with others interested in 3D printing.

From there, I earned funding to support the incorporation of 3D printing into my own Composition course. My students worked on developing boardgames using 3D printing software, Adobe products, and research consultations from a range of industry experts. My students consistently noted that my course challenged them to think creatively, fostered their interest in research on campus, and helped them develop a wide range of digital and analytical skills.

I am an enthusiastic learner, and when I was not teaching during the academic year, I spent my summers working a as a GRE instructor, mentor, and Writing/Research Coordinator for the Moore Undergraduate Research Assistantship Program. When the Director asked for my help to improve the program’s workflow and general experiences based on several years of student feedback, I knew I could put my UX and Learning Design Skills to good use.

Roles: Researcher, Coder, Learning Design Consultant and Instructor

Project Rundown: First, I decided to look at student feedback from End-of-Program surveys from the past 5 years. After creating a coding criteria, I documented the various responses in a large spreadsheet and used these responses to guide my research plan through the discovery phase. Several themes around the need for more time to work on projects, worries about managing mentor expectations and a lack of funding options emerged from this data.

Guided by these concerns from my student-users, I combined my expertise with various adult learning models and best practices from survey design to present a series of program revisions to the Director. This included recommendations to guide program instructors to use a flipped-classroom model for instruction design, documentation to restructure the mentoring relationship, and the creation of “quick sheets” to help students locate funding easily. Finally, I redesigned the evaluation surveys to better capture student concerns and offer the program more robust data collection for further program updates.

Student satisfaction with the program increased significantly by the end of the summer I first proposed changes. Later student cohorts would attribute their success in the program to changes that were rooted in my research and desire to improve their learning and work experiences. Very rewarding!

Despite my love for travel, I have never been shy about expressing my love for my hometown of Durham, North Carolina. After joining the Code for America Durham Brigade, and seeing there was a need for UX researchers, I knew I had to sign-up to help!

Roles: UX Researcher, Content strategist, Recorder

Project Rundown: Our team is currently drafting a research plan to aid the main Technology Communications Director for the city of Durham to advocate for improvements to Durham’s website. Despite previous “reskins “of the site, there remain problems with its information architecture, accessibility and the discoverability of content on the page. As a government website, it also services as a public utility, meaning that its maintenance is crucial for the residents who rely on the site to complete a range of tasks.

We are currently in the discovery stage, and are coding a series of resident responses from 2 phases of survey generated feedback about the current site. In addition, we have identified potential users for testing and are exploring research methods that could be useful for creating buy-in from other content owners on the site, as well as improving data collection tools. I’m excited to see what the next stages of our research process will bring!