Website design for Filmriket : A user centered design process with schoolchildren and educators

Abstract: Introduction: The purpose of this master thesis at the Luleå University of Technology within the area of Industrial Design Engineering was to improve the design for the website Filmriket.com. By analyzing the website Filmriket, the strengths & weaknesses of the interface and the content were found, and improvements were made to create a more pleasing experience with the website for the users. Background: The website Filmriket.com is an educational website for teachers/ educators and schoolchildren with a focus on movies and moviemaking within the school. The fundamentals of Filmriket are to Watch, Discuss and Create. These three are all connected to the Swedish school curriculum. The website is a nonprofitable initiative, owned by the movie production company Filmpool Nord, intending to reach out to as many schools and moviemaking interested children as possible. All the material on the website has been collected and developed with the help of educators within both schools and the Swedish movie institute. Methods: A literature review was performed to find relevant theories regarding interface design guidelines. A current state was performed to analyze the current website, locating strengths and weaknesses. A benchmarking provided inspiration and knowledge of how similar content to Filmriket can be presented. Interviews were performed with five educators which gave insight into how they interpreted the current website. Two Workshops were held with students and schoolchildren, where 16 schoolchildren got to give feedback on the current website and to create improvements of their own. A major brainstorming session based on user feedback and guidelines within interface design provided a lot of ideas that could be merged into three different concepts. The Circle, Rectangular & Movie theme. The users got to vote for the best concept. One final concept emerged based on user feedback and a concept evaluation based on relevant theory.  Result: The final result presents a clickable prototype of the new website with the following improvements: A search engine is implemented. A new menu is present on every page. A new video layout creating better balance, more content visible in the same space, and less visible text. Better contrast between the background and the written text. More colors, specifically pastel colors. Less need to scroll by being able to close down content and by implementing drop-down menus that take up less space. More informational text that better describes the different pages.