Site Redesign

Designing the Future of Fashion History: Mount Mary University Digital Fashion Archive Redesign presentation

This Omeka site was created and the first items added in 2018. In Fall 2023, students in the User Experience Interface Design class taught by Mary Burton, Assistant Professor of UX Design, reviewed the site. Their goal was to increase the use of the Digital Fashion Archive by current Mount Mary University students, and consider design improvements to enhance the fashion archive experience for all users. 

Digital Fashion Archive homepage wireframe

Elizabeth Boney, Malaika Powell, Ann Tran, and Winla Vang spoke with fashion students in focus groups, brainstormed design improvements, and created wireframes for the homepage and the collections page. Their presentation to Digital Fashion Archive staff can be found on this page, along with their wireframes.

Recommendations adopted by the Digital Fashion Archive included:

• Chunk the long block of text on the homepage into separate sections

• Add a Pinterest-style gallery at the top of the homepage

• Add a "Contact Us" form to allow users to ask questions

Digital Fashion Archive collections page wireframe

Unfortunately, two major recommendations - to improve navigation by making the side navigation bar collapsible, and to improve the search feature by adding more filters - proved impossible given the limitations of Omeka and staff time and expertise.

But while not all of their suggestions could be adopted, the Digital Fashion Archive benefitted from their analysis and thoughtful critiques, and we look forward to continuing to improve whenever possible!