How can you improve access to valuable education materials for Arkansas, Louisiana, and Texas?

The organization had created a highly valuable "Conditions for Successful Projects" (CSPs) framework, but it suffered from massive discoverability issues. Four out of six key target users were completely unaware that the center's website and public resources even existed. The challenge was amplifying their work to drive actual adoption of these planning tools.

Required designing for a highly diverse, specialized audience of education professionals ranging from elementary teachers to state education administrators with 18 to 30+ years of experience.The tools are crucial for under-resourced schools (e.g., districts under 1,000 students) making high-level project decisions. Better UX directly translates to better educational project outcomes and public funding utilization.

"Digitize the Conditions for a Successful Project framework and conduct usability testing to validate the designs with educators."

State government stakeholders and internal cross-functional teams (including GIS/Map developers).

Adapted standard CMS discovery methods to account for complex, custom spatial data integration alongside standard government pages.

Synthesis approach: Mapped the physical layout and historical data of the cemetery to digital equivalents, transforming a massive content audit into specialized functional specifications for an interactive map.

Research revealed the UX disconnect between the monolithic mapping software and standard public-facing historical content, driving the need for a unified digital experience.

Designed a multi-layered digital ecosystem integrating a complex, interactive cemetery map with standard state government CMS pages. Designed a responsive system for genealogical research and in person wayfinding system for visitors.

Sitemapping

[Annotate: what this tested, what you learned from it]

Structured the content to bridge the physical-to-digital gap. I created an architecture that allowed users to seamlessly pivot between reading high-level historical narratives (e.g., biographies of prominent Texans) and locating their exact physical monuments via the interactive spatial map. The ux design consolidated both the factual historical experience and the personal history of the plot holder.

The highly specialized nature of the map required deep collaboration. I partnered directly with the Front-End Developer and a specialized Map/CMS Developer to ensure the UX vision was technically viable within the state's backend constraints.As a state agency, strict WCAG compliance was non-negotiable. I ensured all map interactions, spatial data filtering, and layout choices were fundamentally designed for screen-reader compatibility and keyboard navigation.

[Describe the business or mission impact — not just UX metrics. How many end users now benefit from this experience? What organizational goal did the redesign serve? Connect your design decisions to downstream outcomes.]

• Downstream reach — Modernized the digital infrastructure for a historic state government agency under the Texas State Preservation Board, directly impacting how millions of Texas citizens and educators access state history and prominent biographies.
• Business outcome — Delivered a massive end-to-end digital transformation and interactive map build, successfully steering 1,550+ project hours (across UX, Design, and separate FE/BE developers) to completion
• Accessibility — Ensured the highly complex, custom interactive cemetery map adhered to strict state government accessibility and ADA compliance standards.

Because this project heavily involved an interactive map component, I would push to establish technical scoping boundaries even earlier in the discovery phase. Integrating proprietary map tools alongside a standard CMS requires a highly unified front-end and back-end vision.

Managing 1,550+ project hours across completely different disciplines (Visual Design, Front-End, and Backend/Map Developers) taught me that a UX Designer cannot just hand off wireframes and walk away. I learned to treat functional specifications as living documents that bridge the gap between design intent and spatial data reality. This project cemented my framework for "Physical-to-Digital Content Modeling." When working with physical institutions (like cemeteries or museums), I now automatically include a phase dedicated to mapping physical geography to digital information architecture.