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Chestnut Hill is known throughout the city of Philadelphia as one of the most culturally rich and historic divisions of the county. I have always enjoyment in traversing the shoppes, local parks, and dining at the amazing eateries throughout Chestnut Hill, and as such I felt inspired to create an accessibility driven, yet aesthetically beautiful website showcasing features that are important to the inhabitants and visitors to the area.
This 16 week collaboration project with fellow designer Autumn Fean is an exploration of UX, accessibility, interactive design, and project management.
Known as Philadelphia's Garden District and named "one of the top seven urban enclaves in the country" by Forbes.com; Chestnut Hill is one of the greenest and most vibrant communities in the country.
The first order of business when creating this concept was to do a deep dive into the cultural history of Chestnut Hill. Through our search we discovered a few things: The incorporation of the town into Philadelphia was in 1854, It was originally a retreat from the (much smaller) city of Philadelphia in the hot summers, and that it was originally a farmland before being developed into the town it is now. The importance of this information helps to better understand why Chestnut Hill, while being so close to center city Philadelphia; remains distinct in that it has such a small town feel. We wanted to capture this in our design decisions throughout the site.
HISTORY
Black 29.1%
Asian 5.5%
Other 0.5%
White 54.2%
Hispanic 7.6%
2+ Races 2.9%
DEMOGRAPHICS
The overall project was an effective lesson in accessibility, creating a compelling brand for an existing civic entity, and working collaboratively through the course of a project.
FINAL PROTOTYPE
Colleen is a female 43-year-old Boutique owner that recently started renting a space in Chestnut hill. She has three kids and is looking to help make the schools in the area even better for her kids as a new business owner. Colleen is looking for support from her community to help prompt her small business. She also recognizes the theft increase in the area and hopes the community will assist with a stronger police presence.
Jessica is a 27-year-old influencer from Philadelphia PA. She is a small town day trip blogger. She is looking for a good picture to take and some delicious food. Jessica comes here on the weekends or after work to get out of the city center. She has a minor vision disability and is always looking to find places easy to navigate through the community pages and needs auditory cues for crosswalks.
PERSONA(S)
Identifying our users was paramount for creating a website that could benefit as many inhabitants as possible, and because of this we created three separate personas, each of them characterizing a unique subsection of the population.
BRANDING
Creating a brand identity for Chestnut Hill that personified the cultural history and charm of the town was important while we were beginning the process of UI design. we leaned heavily on the inclusion of the chestnut tree of which the area is named throughout our process for iconography. Typography decisions were fueled by the feeling of chestnut hill, clean, classic, and charming were the adjectives that stuck with us throughout the design process. Throughout the project, there were multiple rounds of revisions to style and concept of our logo and typography.
FINAL PRODUCT
This project was a wonderful way to gain some valuable experience in many different modalities of the design industry. I enjoyed pushing boundaries with UI while conforming to tried and true UX best practices. Collaborating on a team was also a great experience as it taught me how to more effectively communicate my visual and organizational ideas while working in a manner that is easy to pass off to others.
