Black Cemeteries
Project Overview
Black Cemeteries is an app that is powered by kinkofa, which is a community of Black folx whose mission to bring generations together to uncover, record, and preserve Black family stories with pride and dignity.
There is a lack of access to important genealogical data, both physically and financially, for those who wish to engage in genealogical research about the Black community and their ancestry. The goal for our design is to equip users with the tools and platform they need to build a connection amongst inter-generational researchers, restore and preserve burial grounds, contribute data to an ongoing database of information, and consolidate data from graves, obituaries, and death certificates
Task
Design an application for the kinkofa community where they will be able to create and search for virtual memorials and cemeteries.
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
Initial User Interviews
Our team was able to interview 5 people from the kinkofa community. We wanted to identify their positives and pain points in using competitors' applications. We found that the majority of the users became interested in genealogy because of speaking with elderly family members about their ancestors. We wanted to take everything we learned through these interviews to be a launching pad to further their current research and findings.
Positive Points
Desktop is easy to use
Apps & websites provide leads on information
Users with visual challenges like being able to use a tablet or desktop
Able to find important information at government institutions, libraries, and museums
Negative Points
Mobile versions of website were difficult to navigate
Genealogical documents are often behind paywalls
Some information had false leads
Government Institutions, libraries, and museums with valuable information were across the country
Competitor Analysis
During our initial user interviews, we identified 5 competitors apps and websites that our users utilized to create and search for memorials and cemeteries. We conducted a competitive and comparative analyses of the following competitors:
Find A Grave
Billions Graves
Cemetery Find
US Gen Web
Names In Stone
Affinity Mapping
Once we were done with user interviews and the competitive and comparative analysis, we created an affinity map that helped us identify the following “Must Haves” and “Nice to Haves” features that would best serve our users’ needs:
Must Haves Features
Create virtual memorials and cemeteries
Search for memorials and cemeteries
Upload photos
Access to genealogical resources
Give flowers
Nice to Haves Features
Memorial management
Preventing mischievous behavior
Connecting with other users
Platform Responsive (mobile, tablet, desktop)
Problem Statement & HMWs
Users need a way to research, record, and share memorials/cemeteries to explore their own family history and to collaborate with others in the Black genealogy community.
HMW enhance existing features from competitors to make the research process easier?
HMW remove barriers (like paywalls) and misinformation to help users in their research?
HMW make researching family history easy for users to do from their phone?
HMW help users collaborate with other users to obtain genealogical information?
Persona
Through our user research, problem statements, and HMWs statements we were able to create a user persona, Tracy Johnson! Tracy was key to leading our decisions for what our main target users would need and want.
User Flows
We created a user flow that would take Tracy through the Black Cemeteries app. We focused on 4 different tasks:
Add a new memorial for Gloria Richardson
Search for Cypress Gove Cemetery and then search for relative’s memorial (Hallie Quinn Brown)
Give virtual flowers to a relative’s (Hallie Quinn Brown) memorial
Connect with one of the user (Johnny Harper) who also gave virtual flowers to your relative (Hallie Quinn Brown)
Progressive Website App (PWA)
My group then needed to decide if we wanted to make this app a Native App, Web Responsive Site, or a PWA. We considered which type of app would best serve our users’ needs (see features below) and concluded that creating a PWA was the best choice.
Lo-Fi Sketched Wireframes and Mid-Fi Prototype
Our team individually sketched lo-fi wireframes. We were able to do a design studio where each team member pitched design elements that they thought were important for the app. We decided to take design elements from everyone’s sketches and create on Figma our mid fidelity wireframes and prototype it.
Usability Testing Round #1
Tasks
Add a new memorial for Gloria Richardson
Search for Cypress Gove Cemetery and then search for relative’s memorial, Hallie Quinn Brown
Give virtual flowers to a relative’s (Hallie Quinn Brown) memorial
Connect with one of the user (Johnny Harper) who also gave virtual flowers to your relative (Hallie Quinn Brown)
Results
Success rate of completing Tasks - 100%
Success rate of completing tasks in under 5 mins - 100%
Iteration Round #1
Our team made changes to the app based on user feedback. The following are examples of some of the changes made:
Stepped Progression
Users stated that screens that had info to be filled out were too long. We “broke up” the memorial page into 5 screens and provided a progression tracker. Below are some of the progression screens.
Before
After
GPS Coordinates
Users informed us that unfortunately not all cemetery plots are properly marked due to the cemeteries being forgotten, desecrated, or were not properly marked to begin with. We added the option to allow users to add GPS coordinates for the cemetery plots.
Before
After
Usability Testing Round #2
Our team then built a Hi-Fi Prototype for round #2. Our user population consisted of folks who had participated in round #1 of testing and of folks who had never used the Black Cemeteries app.
Tasks
Add a new memorial for Gloria Richardson
Search for Cypress Gove Cemetery and then search for relative’s memorial, Hallie Quinn Brown
Give virtual flowers to a relative’s (Hallie Quinn Brown) memorial
Connect with one of the user (Johnny Harper) who also gave virtual flowers to your relative (Hallie Quinn Brown)
Results
Success rate of completing Tasks - 100%
Success rate of completing tasks in under 5 mins - 100%
Iteration Round #2
Our team made changes to the app based on user feedback. The following are examples of some of the changes made:
Page Layout & Button
Users stated that the Given Flower screen was “a bit difficult to follow” and that the yellow buttons were too harsh on the eyes. As a result, our team redesigned the screen as well as the primary and secondary buttons.
Before
After
Memorial Changes
Users had a tough time finding the elipsis below Hallie Quinns Brown’s name so we turned it into a button. Many users also didn’t know that by clicking on the underlined Cypress Grove Cemetery they would be directed to the cemetery’s profile page, so we turned it into a blue link.
Before
After
We took elements of a mood board that was created by our clients and created a design system for the app. Throughout the app’s background, users will see a brick theme design that was inspired by African mudcloth textiles. The color palette was inspired from the Afro-culture of being lively, dynamic, and vivid.
Style Guide
High Fidelity Prototype
We implemented changes based on the user feedback from the 2nd round of usability testing and created the high fidelity prototype below. Please feel free to click through the mockup using this Figma Link.
Reflections and Next Steps
This was my first real life client I had to design for. It was fun and sometimes difficult when we had creative differences as a group (and with our client), however, we would overcome this by letting the user feedback to lead our decisions. Our team recommended to the client to explore the following options for future iterations:
Add a tutorial feature as part of onboarding to address any questions users might have about the app’s features
Add notifications tab to inform users about new activity or updates to the app
Flesh out the design of the Resources page
