Overview

JSTOR Daily is an academic research platform that bridges scholarly work and general audiences. Over nine months, I worked as a UX designer and researcher on a contract engagement to redesign the platform's core experience. The scope covered both short-term improvements to the existing interface and long-term recommendations for the product roadmap.

The problem

The platform's existing structure made it difficult for users to find what they were looking for. Researchers were navigating fragmented archives and disconnected pages, often missing content that was relevant to their work. The navigation was unintuitive, search was buried, and there was no clear path from discovery to reading. These friction points were driving users away from the content rather than deeper into it.

Research

The team conducted a thorough analysis of the existing platform using both quantitative and qualitative data. We surveyed 240+ users and conducted over 20 hours of interviews across the platform's full user spectrum: researchers, educators, students, and librarians. Each group used the platform differently, which meant any solution needed to serve fundamentally different workflows without adding complexity.

The research surfaced consistent themes. Users struggled with discoverability: finding the right page, understanding what content existed, and navigating between related articles. The search bar was hidden in the navigation, and there were no contextual links between related pieces of content.

Process

With the research findings as a foundation, we moved into defining the problem clearly before jumping into solutions. The platform serves drastically different user types, so we needed to prioritize improvements that would have the broadest impact rather than optimizing for a single workflow.

The process was iterative: ideating, prototyping, testing, revising, and repeating. We mapped the information architecture to understand the full scope of the site, then identified the specific pages and interactions where improvements would have the most impact. Not everything was polished at each stage, but it was important to see how the experience evolved with each round of feedback.

A persistent challenge was the difficulty users had finding the right page for their needs. The search bar was hidden within the navigation, and there were no clear wayfinding cues to help users orient themselves within the site's structure.

Solutions

Through extensive testing and iteration, we developed three core improvements that addressed the most critical pain points from the research.

Streamlined navigation We restructured the information architecture so users could understand where they were and where they could go next. Search was elevated from a hidden corner to a central, accessible location on every page. Breadcrumbs were added to give users a visual trail back through their journey without losing context. After the redesign, users found items in the navbar in 9 seconds on average, down from 124.

Inline references We introduced article previews on hover so users could understand content before committing to it. Inline citations and references created pathways to explore deeper into topics, and thematic collections helped casual readers find their way into specialized subjects without prior knowledge.

Article page improvements The article page was restructured to keep readers oriented and connected to the underlying research. Breadcrumbs were added for clear wayfinding, a JSTOR collection card surfaces the original research behind each article, and a closable navigation menu keeps the reading and reference finding experience clean and snappy. Users found resources in 10 seconds on average, down from 61.

Beyond

The engagement spanned nine months, but the work is ongoing. We delivered both short-term improvements and long-term recommendations for the product roadmap, with the expectation that the team would continue iterating based on user feedback.