This project focused on designing an internal tool to help Smithsonian educators find and share learning resources across the institution.
With dozens of museums and units operating independently, resources were often siloed and hard to discover. This tool was designed to increase visibility, foster collaboration, and make it easier for educators to learn from each other.
This case study covers the research, design, and delivery of MVP 1.1 — the project’s first launch focused on building the foundation for resource sharing and discovery.
The Challenge
Smithsonian educators needed a simple way to find and share resources across teams without navigating dozens of disconnected systems.
Role & Approach
I was the lead (and sole) product designer on this project, responsible for everything from early discovery through final design and iteration. This included designing and facilitating a design thinking workshop with stakeholders from our pilot group, gathering requirements, creating wireframes and prototypes, and collaborating closely with developers to bring the tool to life.
My approach was grounded in balancing value and effort. Smithsonian educators are busy, and these assets already existed in various digital formats — the challenge wasn’t content creation, it was findability and access. That meant the UI needed to feel intuitive and lightweight, and the process of adding or discovering resources needed to be fast and frictionless.
Given that search and discovery were core to the experience at this early stage, I looked to research-centric tools like JSTOR and PubMed for inspiration, tools designed for users trying to find very specific information quickly. This mindset helped guide decisions around navigation, search behavior, and content presentation throughout the project.
Process
The project began with a design thinking workshop I facilitated with stakeholders from our pilot group which consisted of educators and content owners from across several Smithsonian units. This session helped us align on shared challenges, understand current behaviors around resource cataloging and sharing, and identify what an early version of this tool really needed to do to provide value.
Every unit had different workflows, content types, and levels of technical comfort. The biggest risk was designing something that was either too rigid or too abstract to be useful.
After the workshop, I mapped key user flows and gathered requirements, focusing on two core actions: adding resources and finding resources. While search and discovery were always part of the long-term vision, we made a strategic decision to focus MVP 1 on enabling educators to easily add their existing resources into the system.
Designing the additional flow required balancing flexibility with structure. Smithsonian educators work with a wide variety of asset types, so I explored patterns from research tools like JSTOR and PubMed. We incorporated AI tools to help educators generate metadata and reduce friction in the upload process.
Strategic Trade Off, MVP 1 did not include search or filtering. Our focus was on making it fast and easy to add resources, building a foundation of structured, consistent content that would power future discovery features.
Given that these learning assets already existed in digital formats, and that educators were time-strapped, speed and simplicity were essential. I looked to research platforms like JSTOR and PubMed for inspiration — tools that prioritized fast scanning, search precision, and clear metadata.
I created low-fidelity wireframes to test early ideas, then moved into interactive prototypes to gather feedback and refine the flows.
Balancing flexibility (so all kinds of assets could be shared) with enough structure (so assets could actually be found) required a lot of iteration — especially around tagging, categorization, and search filters.
Outcome & Impact
Feedback from our pilot users has been largely positive, with educators describing the tool as intuitive and easy to use. We've responded quickly to feedback, adding tooltips, refining language, and improving small interaction details to make the experience feel even more supportive.
Most importantly, this is the first time units across the Smithsonian have been able to directly co-own and manage their learning assets in a shared space — creating new opportunities for collaboration and visibility across the institution.
This laid the foundation for future discovery or insight features and user-centric improvements, including enhanced searching.
Looking Ahead
I'm most proud of how we've been able to seamlessly fold refinements into each iteration, staying responsive to real user needs while keeping the experience simple and efficient.
Moving forward, we’ll be expanding the tool’s capabilities with bulk upload, drafts, and AI-assisted metadata generation through a guided loading list. In version 2.0, we’ll also introduce a data dashboard to help educators explore trends, gaps, and patterns across assets — continuing to evolve the tool into a platform for discovery and insight.