Sesame Workshop

I’m not typically one for brand loyalty, but I am a lifelong Sesame fan. I grew up watching Sesame Street, Follow That Bird, and Ghostwriter on repeat. Bert is one of my personal heroes. My kiddo fell for muppets too, and Esme & Roy, Sesame’s sadly cancelled show about monster sitters with a magical bag full of mindfulness tricks. So when Chappell Ellison invited me to tag in on a multisite consolidation effort, I jumped at the opportunity.

I spent about three months developing a new information architecture. This began with a content audit for seven websites under the Sesame umbrella. Sesame has a wide range of audiences, including families around the world, professionals who work with children, institutional donors, fans, and members of the press. I developed a topic map to categorize all of their content, and a sitemap, which continued to evolve as we worked closer to launch.

// img: sitemap

Ryn Adkins and I worked closely with Sesame to develop wireframes and new site navigation, including primary paths, recirculation modules, and faceted search. I paired with Sesame’s digital production team on a detailed taxonomy spreadsheet with content types, topics and subtopics, languages, show names, audience tags, and more. My goal was to keep the navigation friendly and easy to understand, just like Sesame’s content.

// img: taxonomy and navigation

Once these core features were approved, I proposed and led a navigation study to validate our designs. I wrote a survey to poll newsletter subscribers and people who use Sesame’s educational materials regularly. We also gathered audience data to inform the redesign effort and recruit a broad set of engaged users for the tree test.

// img: user research

Postlight brought me back into the fold over the summer to continue finalizing the designs, information architecture, and migration plans.