Timeline & Tools
Duration: 6 months
Tools: Sketch, InVision
Platform & Team: Built on WordPress by myself
Deliverables: Complete interactive mockups and brand illustration guidelines to shape visual direction and maintain consistency
Role & Objective
As the UX/Interactive Designer, I created a dynamic, scalable online archive. The aim was to craft a platform that could continuously integrate new materials—documents, audio recordings, video—while minimizing support calls and delivering a seamless user experience.
Challenge & Strategy
Problem: The archive needed to be easily navigable, visually cohesive, and able to evolve organically as more content was added.
Solution: Developed a WordPress site with a forward-looking sitemap that anticipated future content categories—ensuring scalability and coherence as the archive grew.
Planned for phased feature rollouts aligned with funding cycles—ensuring updates felt seamless and timely, not disjointed.
Research & Insights
User Research: Conducted interviews with Claire Andrade-Watkins, SPIA’s president and founder, to understand her needs when presenting to schools, institutions, and grant panels.
Also conducted a survey of similar online documentary archives to understand the structure and patterns these researchers use to display their work.
Insight: The platform needed to serve as a multi-sensory storytelling vehicle—capturing cultural practices and narratives that “create a history that matters” to the Cape Verdean and broader New England community.
Personas & Competitive Assessment
Target Users: Researchers, students, grant-making institutions, and members of the Cape Verde community seeking authentic, multimedia cultural archives.
Competitive Advantage: Positioned as the most comprehensive archive for this cultural heritage, setting it apart in depth, accessibility, and format diversity.
Next steps
Expand the History section to fulfill the vision to build history one story at a time, in different forms and media and create a sustainable legacy that engages and draws from the voices, memories, hopes and dreams of a community connected to New England by a unique transatlantic history.
