UI/UX & Front-end Development

Phipps Conservatory Member App: Virtual membership cards for Phipps Conservatory Members

Problem: Phipps Conservatory, a large Victorian greenhouse attraction located in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, needed a new way for their 12,000 members to gain admission to their museum. Members used a wasteful, unsustainable member card that often wore and tore, going against their eco-friendly mission. Additionally, the conservatory wanted to be able to keep up with modern technological trends and museum competitors. 

Process: 

To gain knowledge about the problem space we interviewed different stakeholders including the director of membership services, director of marketing, front desk member managers, and members themselves. 

After nailing down the feature list of our minimum viable product (MVP), I created wireframes using Balsamiq. These wireframes were circulated to stakeholders for feedback. 

I designed hi-fidelity mockups next. To keep the application’s aesthetics in line with the Phipps Conservatory brand, I worked closely with the director of marketing and with the organizational style guide. The biggest design takeaway was that the application needed to be designed for the older audience of conservatory members. To adjust I made decisions like use explanatory text instead of iconography, and larger text and button sizes. 

I implemented finalized designs with HTML/CSS/Javascript in a hybrid development framework: PhoneGap.