Interlochen Arts Center

Worked with a women-run start-up that aims to make the electoral process more equitable

Overview

I completed a website competitive analysis and a digital prototype with recommended redesigns for Interlochen Center for the Arts, a world class arts and music education institution in Michigan.

Role: Head Web Editor, UX Researcher, UX Designer, UI Designer, Web Designer

Collaborator: Rami Abdul-Aziz, Alexa Libbey, Silas Clark

Timeline: August 2024 - Present

Tools: Figma, Miro, Canva

My Role

UX Researcher

UX Designer

UI Designer

Web Designer

Marketing Analyst

Mentor

Team

Leah Stewart

Timeline

June 2025 - August 2025

Tools

Figma

Hotjar

Drupal

Hubspot

Google Sheets

Context

Fun fact: I was so excited to work with and live at Interlochen as I had heard about its renowned summer camp all the way back during my high school orchestra days!

Throughout my internship, I got familiarized with Interlochen’s website and various business units that all consist of providing world class arts education, exhibitions, and performances. These units, including Interlochen Arts Academy and Interlochen Arts Camp, include their own sub pages within Interlochen’s website.

Problem Discovery

Upon completing a competitive analysis between Interlochen and other institutions in the market, I found the following issues:

Context

Fun fact: I was so excited to work with and live at Interlochen as I had heard about its renowned summer camp all the way back during my high school orchestra days!

Problem Discovery

Upon completing a competitive analysis between Interlochen and other institutions in the market, I found the following issues:

Problem Discovery

Upon completing a competitive analysis between Interlochen and other institutions in the market, I found the following issues:

Poor Marketability

Marketability of Interlochen's services via website. A lot of recruitment comes from people formerly knowledgeable about its name.

Overwhelming Business Units

Interlochen currently has many business units that can overwhelm users with decision making.

Confusing Page Hierarchy

Users struggle with navigability due to unconventional informational hierarchy and hidden menu items.

What I Accomplished

Playful,

Reactive

Graphics

Playful,

Reactive

Graphics

Intuitive

User Flow

Intuitive

User Flow

Greater

Accessibility

Greater

Accessibility

What I Accomplished

Playful,

Reactive

Graphics

Greater

Accessibility

Intuitive

User Flow

Led a large-scale competitive analysis of three most robust business unit websites: Interlochen Arts Camp, Interlochen Arts Academy, and Interlochen Online.

Synthesizing my analysis findings and after validating problem discoveries with site analytics tools, I created a website redesign prototype to visualize anticipated changes for the menu bar style, facilities page, and Interlochen Arts Academy home page to create more leads and transparency.

The Demo ✨

ִֶָ. ..𓂃 ࣪ ִֶָ 🦋 ་༘࿐

But wait. How did I get here? Let's dive into the process.

The Demo ✨

ִֶָ. ..𓂃 ࣪ ִֶָ 🦋 ་༘࿐

Competitive Analysis

The Demo ✨

ִֶָ. ..𓂃 ࣪ ִֶָ 🦋 ་༘࿐

Competitive Analysis

Introduction

In order to thoroughly assess website issues and user needs, I was tasked with creating a competitive analysis on Interlochen’s website and pages specific to Interlochen Arts Academy, Interlochen Arts Camp, and Interlochen Online.

Interlochen Arts Academy: Interlochen’s 4-year arts boarding high school(#2 on Niche.com!)

Interlochen Arts Camp: Interlochen’s oldest program, an arts and music camp for K-12 students
Interlochen Online: Interlochen’s online courses for music, arts, and writing

I initially examined and vetted a list of competitors that the Director of Digital Media(also my supervisor) presented to me including premier boarding schools, creative summer camps, and innovative online learning programs. To ensure that I would spend ample attention on each competitor, I ended up choosing to focus on 5 competitors per Interlochen business unit.

Research Models

Analyzing over 15 competitors and Interlochen’s own site pages is tricky, so I created an organized process and scoring rubric that adapted effective UX and marketing analyses methods– SWOT Analysis in the form of notes as well as a Hubspot-inspired competitor scoring card that also includes a NNGroup Heuristic Evaluation. Additionally, I also utilized data analytics tools to review website heatmaps and user recordings to really get an understanding of Interlochen customers.

SWOT Analysis

Provided in-depth notes on strengths, weaknesses, opportunities, and threats that competitor websites contained. From SWOT, I found certain features from competitor websites that seemed very worth exploring that Interlochen currently lacks:

Heuristic Evaluation

SWOT gave me foundational context on the market for children's arts summer programs, arts boarding schools, and online learning programs, I moved onto developing a heuristic evaluation tool to score Interlochen's website's performance. I developed specific subcategories for each of the existing NNGroup Heuristics after discussions with the Director of Digital Marketing and reviewing necessary features for such websites to possess.

explanation of heuristic evaluation, graphic of all the heuristics and subcategories i come up with, link to competitor scoring card and screenshots.

Ideation

Competitor Scoring Card

Identifying Key Problems on Website

Validating the User

User Behavior Analytics

-Used Hot Jar and viewed heatmaps as well as user recordings to determine the best features to look into fixing. Based on the heatmaps, users click on the hamburger menu far more, almost 50% of users stop engaging with IAA page before they even view Art Majors and Academic programs even though those are high-activity spots. Through viewing recordings, I could also see that users seemed to rely on the search tool often in order to find pages they were looking for including faculty pages and staff pages.

Problems

-Focused in on a couple features

IAA Home Page

Menu Bar

Campus and Facilities Pages

Reconfiguring Art Areas/Art Majors page

Problem 1: Arts Academy Landing Page

Problem 2: Campus and Facilities

Problem 1: Arts Academy Landing Page

Problem 2: Campus and Facilities

Designing

Flow Improvements

Final Product

Bold yet organized, playful and exploratory.

Design

IAA Landing Page

The candidate home page contains an overview of voter analytics, announcements, events, and important dates to keep in mind. There is also an account personalization option with features including updating profile information, privacy, and adding collaborators.

Reactive Graphics

Call to Action

Art Majors

Academy Majors

Campus Facilities

Creating Announcements and Livestreams

Candidates are able to create announcements, events, and livestreams that bolster voter engagement!

Reflections & Goals

From our affinity mapping and user persona development, we gathered the following pain points to resolve for our

website redesign:

From our affinity mapping and user persona development, we gathered the following pain points to resolve for our

website redesign:

What I Learned

🌱 I learned a great deal about intersecting marketing and user experience design strategies to create designs that generate leads and increased engagement with a service.

🌱I presented my research findings and prototype multiple times to my supervisor and the VP of Marketing at Interlochen, helping me further my storytelling skills for a design from start to finish.

🌱Gain knowledge and practice in ways responsive graphics and buttons can help guide user decision-making and navigation.

🌱 I learned a great deal about intersecting marketing and user experience design strategies to create designs that generate leads and increased engagement with a service.

🌱I presented my research findings and prototype multiple times to my supervisor and the VP of Marketing at Interlochen, helping me further my storytelling skills for a design from start to finish.

🌱Gain knowledge and practice in ways responsive graphics and buttons can help guide user decision-making and navigation.