The Mellon Philosophy as a Way of Life Project is a joint endeavor between the University of Notre Dame and The Andrew W. Mellon Foundation to enhance the teaching of philosophy as a way of life (PhiLife) through innovative approaches. During the summer of 2021, the Mellon Initiative for Effective Instruction worked on a project to assist nine schools in designing Fall courses. In this initiative, I contributed to the development and leadership of a college-wide content strategy approach, involving the creation and execution of a website template.

Our goal for this project is to develop a versatile website template for creators of PhiLife courses for the summer of 2021. This template will be easily adaptable for multiple courses, accommodating various class content needs.

The first thing we need to know is who our target audience will be? or Who will be visiting these websites? In this case, we know the users would be primarily college students. However, philosophy professors will also be using the site and update content on it accordingly.

In the research phase, I engaged in interviews with 20 potential users, including students and faculty involved in philosophy courses. Key inquiries included, “How do you prefer to look for specific assignments related to your courses?” and “How frequently do you encounter challenges in retrieving information?”

This process aimed to identify the essential content users expect and understand their preferences for efficient information retrieval. Insights from the interviews guided the development of user archetypes, ensuring that the website template caters specifically to the needs of philosophy students and faculty. Notably, students expressed a preference for simplified information presented concisely. This helped with ideation and understanding of the content necessary for the site.

Checklisting and compartmentalising key contents through several card sorting exercises.

I started by sketching my ideas, allowing me to quickly express my thoughts and map out a rough idea of the design. This initial step helped me to visualize the layout of the design, consider the placement of elements and features, and make modifications to the design as needed.