cathie toshach polaroid picture

The following represents my current body of work. It may seem a bit eclectic at times, but I see it as a rather rounded approach to understanding and designing for people. People like you and me who crave information and don't want anything holding it up, hiding it, or overly complicating it. It can be pretty or even fun just as long as you give it to us straight.

You can also take a look at my résumé if you are so inclined.

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MiTalk

Fall 2007 |  MiTalk Prototype (Optimized for Firefox)

Overview

MiTalk, a product of the University of Michigan, is a university-wide initiative that seeks to provide students online mental health resources and education. As part of a semester-long project, a group of students, the MiTalkers, sought to understand, evaluate, and ultimately recommend solutions for the mental health education modules component of MiTalk.

Project Goals

  • Identify and understand the unique user groups of the product.
  • Develop a model that ensures the privacy and trust of the user.
  • Create an interface that facilitates administrative needs such as tracking completion, user demographics, and feedback.

Solutions

To view the complete project, visit the MiTalkers website (optimized for Firefox.)

  • Through contextual inquiries we identified three archetypes: students, student leaders, and administrators. For each of these user groups, we developed personas and scenarios, which highlight their unique needs and goals.
  • Pulling from the data collected during contextual inquiries, we identified the key functions of the website.
  • Through brainstorming sessions we developed lo-fi prototypes and an information architecture for the website.
  • Building on our understanding of the product, we designed and produced a hi-fi protoype using Javascript, XHTML, and CSS.
  • Utilizing the hi-fi prototype, we developed and conducted several usability tests with each of the three identified user groups.
  • From each of the processes above, we concluded by presenting our findings and recommendations to the client. The deliverables provided by our project are actively being used in the development of the MiTalk website.

Tools and Methods

  • Contextual Inquiry
  • Personas and Scenarios
  • Lo-Fi Protoype
  • Hi-Fi Prototype
  • Comparative Evaluation
  • Usabiity Testing
  • Affinity Walkthrough
  • Information Flow Diagram
  • XHTML, CSS, and Javascript

Screenshots

MiTalk Design Concept - Dashboard
MiTalk Design Concept - Education Modules MiTalk Design Concept - My Projects MiTalk Design Concept - My Groups MiTalk Design Concept - My History MiTalk Persona Example

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