Sikorsky Archives
Sikorsky Archives is a team dedicated to the acquisition, management, protection, and availability of historical documents and memorabilia associated with Igor I. Sikorsky’s life and career in aviation and the Sikorsky Aircraft Corporation. To facilitate the continuation of his story and the history of aviation for decades to come, I had the opportunity to collaborate with the Sikorsky Archives team to create a digital experience that replicated the in-person one.
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The Challenge
Since opening in 2000, the Sikorsky Archives team has relied on in-person visits to the site and a guided tour of Igor’s office to facilitate the transfer of knowledge to its guests. In light of COVID-19, all visits and tours were canceled. To adjust to the times, the stakeholders presented us with a brief that challenged my team to create a virtual reality experience using AWS cloud.
Initial Phase:
This project required re-imagining a physical experience that relied on people and making it digital.
The team included 30 interns, all with a diversity of talents and experiences. We were divided into five teams: Product Owner, Content, Development, Database/Infrastructure, and UX team.
With a background in design, development, and creating user-centric products, I was nominated by my stakeholders and peers to serve as the UX lead, where I oversaw three other designers.
Don’t forget the User:
Building a product remotely on a new team presented some initial challenges, including teams working in silos. Not working collaboratively, teams began building the product before empathizing with the end-user and customer.
I connected with the other team leads and suggested that we create user personas that empowered teams, giving them a north star. Their decisions were then motivated by our identified customers and stakeholders’ needs instead of personal preferences or incorrect assumptions.
Our three users included a helicopter/Igor fanatic, a highly technical user, and non-technical users and/or users not knowledgeable on helicopters or Igor Sikorsky.
To gain further insight into these personas, I got the scripts the Archivists team uses for the tour. They also highlighted what details were critical to communicate to preserve the value of the tour.
Test, Test, We Must Test:
After developing the MVP, we moved to user testing. With a limited amount of time, we were unable to run traditional A/B testing. To still provide a variable between our test groups, I suggested that we run moderated and unmoderated testing.
The moderated test group received instructions upfront on navigating the product and its purpose/ the problem it solved.
The unmoderated test group received limited information at the beginning of the test. As they navigated through the experience, they were asked to share their thoughts in real-time, which gave us an unbiased view of how our product operated.
The users we selected for testing represented the three different user personas, and our stakeholder and HR team.
Iterate:
Testing provided some valuable insight into how we could improve the product. I worked with the development team to iterate.
Key insights:
- Improve accessibility
- Clearer user instructions
- Optimize responsiveness and load speed of the environment for various devices/screen sizes
- End autostart, give users the ability to start the experience
In collaboration with the development team, we were able to implement the changes in a timely manner. These iterations created a better experience for our end user and a product that fully represents the life and legacy of Igor I. Sikorsky.
Don’t forget the Brand:
I partnered with a marketing lead to jumpstart the brand creation process for our product, which included creating a marketing campaign to inform employees across the organization about the product and materials for the product launch.
