Key learnings & user personas
Common scenarios for a lot of museums and organizations include working with limited funding or staff, as well as having backlogs of past/pending filing work.
There were multiple systems used by the users interviewed, only one had a usable mobile version. About half the users were self-taught on them, while the rest have learned via other staff or college.
Users expressed the need for a CMS that makes internal registrar work faster, and easier – usable on mobile, and able to manage a wider variety of collections. It's essential for this tool to eliminate speed bumps and streamline the user's workflow. So they don't end up like Tilda.
Michelle Custodio – "As our collection grows, I'd like to be able to make changes in situ, as opposed to taking notes and doing them later on my desktop."
Andrew Ambrosio – "Our CMS is expensive for the size of our organization and we don't have a big team or an IT person to keep coding it to our needs."
Kimberly Richardson – "The education department would benefit from having their own access to build the didactic programming efficiently."
Tilda Swinton (as Elizabeth) – "Do you know FileMaker Pro?"
The collections management field may not be huge but it is not immune to competition. With its value estimated to grow to $2.5m by 2028, institutions will evolve, and employees with newer mental models and software literacy will come and expect tools to match.
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Features
To make the tool more agile and desirable a number of features were identified but, specially later on during observational research, it became evident that its information architecture needed to be restructured to meet these goals.
Better architecture to adapt to more types of collections
Improved workflow to allow for a non-linear process
Optimized dashboard for management capabilities
Structure & happy path
Information Architecture / File Hierarchy
PastPerfect's file hierarchy begins with fixed Catalogs that fit a very specific type of collection. By keeping a hierarchy of levels, but making them all user-editable, the types of collections using the CMS are endless.
This architecture would also allow more granular control on access. Unlocking access to specific areas for registrars, interns, assistants, curators, etc, for whatever time needed.
Editing an object location - User flow
This action became one of the main use cases to observe and work on with Past Perfect: Entering the CMS to lookup, open a record, and edit its location. The user spent about 16 seconds just to pull up a record.
For the design stage I took and modified ready-made Figma components from Dynamic Layer, expediting much of the work that aligned with already established mental models.
56% faster
When a new user looked up a record, applying no filters (9 seconds).
Open. Edit. Done.
With the same streamlined workflow and improved usability, the user can do more record edits in a shorter amount of time, reducing risk of bad inputs.
More than file crucial information, the CMS should be able to help the user stay on track with loans, deadlines, and generate key documents, like condition reports and collection metrics, quickly, without having to exit the app or even have use another device.
