khamir.org User experience, content, and visual design recommendations
Goals To provide clear, actionable ways for Khamir to optimize its web presence
Process 1. Map out existing khamir.org site to visualize user flows and how each page of content relates to the next 2. Assess written and visual content with an eye for best practices, usability, and accessibility 3. Identify areas for improvement and present actionable recommendations in a way that makes it easy for a non-web designer audience to understand, prioritize, and carry out
Part 1 Map out existing khamir.org site
Sitemap: Definition What is a sitemap? It is an inventory of all pages of unique content on your site. A sitemap helps visualize how each page of content relates to the next, how you have named sections of information, and which areas of your site contain more content than others. I created two sitemaps to visualize khamir.org in two different ways.
Home
About
Crafts
Khamir
-
Printed
Who we are Khamir team Our Partners Get Involved Partner w/us
Kachchh
Artisans
Individual artisan stories
Our Work
Ajrakh
-
Ecosystem Process Artisans Villages
Landing page
Shop
News
All News
Landing page
Engagement
Auction
Trade Facilitation
Unique Artisan pieces
Individual news page
Artisan news
Woven
Kala C.
Ecosystem Process Artisans Villages
-
Hard Materials
Leather
-
Ecosystem Process Artisans Villages
Diminishing
Namda
-
Ecosystem Process Artisans Villages
Visit
Individual news page Artisan Services
Wholesale catalog Curated Exhibits
Innovation landing page
Online Shop Individual news page Pottery filter
Kala; Camel; Recycled Individual piece of art
Auction form
The Campus
Guesthouse
Home About
Crafts
Our.Work
Shop
News
Visit
FOOTER
Khamir.(tabs)
Kachchh Artisans.landing.page
All.(landing) (uncategorized)
Printed.textiles
Woven.Textiles
Hard.Materials
Diminishing.Crafts
Landing.page.(photo) Engagement Trade.Facilitation Artisan.Services
*also.in.diminishing
*.If.you.click.on.Khamir,.goes.to.Who.we.are..Not.the.same.order.as.drop.down
Ecosystem Villages
Ecosystem Villages
Who.we.are Khamir.team Our.Partners Get.Involved Partner.with.us
Embroidery
Bela.Printing
*.includes.many.duplicates
Batik.Print Ecosystem Process Villages
About.>.Who.we.are
*.where.does.this.go.if.you.fill.out.a.form?
Mashru Ecosystem Process Artisans Villages
Kharad
Guest.House
All.news.and.events.page
Ecosystem Process Artisans Villages
Kala.Cotton
About.Khamir
Visit.>.Guesthouse
Silversmithy Ecosystem Villages
Kachchh.Weaving
Events
About.>.Get.Involved
Pottery
Ecosystem Process Artisans Villages
Guesthouse
About.>.Partner.with.us
Ecosystem Process Artisans Villages
Ecosystem Process Artisans Villages
Lacquered.Wood Ecosystem Process Artisans Villages Leather.Art
Rogan Ecosystem Process Artisans Villages
Ecosystem Process Artisans Villages
Individual.artisans.page
Ecosystem Process Artisans Villages
*.not.the.same.order.as.in.the.drop.down.nav Bandhani Ecosystem Process Artisans Villages Ajrakh.Blockprint
Ecosystem Villages
Knife.Work Ecosystem Process Villages
Camel.Wool.Weaving
Namda Ecosystem Process Artisans Villages
Individual.art.page Online.auction.page *.only.appears.if.you.go.through.online.shop
Jobs.&.Training
*Broken
*.goes.the.same.place.as.Online.Shop.without.banner *.there.are.none,.only.appears.through.unique.artisan.pieces *.there.are.none,.only.appears.through.unique.artisan.pieces
Partner.with.us
About.>.Get.Involved
Individual.news.pages
Individual.news.pages
Individual.news.pages
*.where.does.this.go.when.you.log.in?
Ajrakh.blockprint Batik.print
*.goes.the.same.place.as.Online.Shop,.but.filtered
Kala.Cotton
All Pottery
Innovation.landing.page Camel.Wool Kala.Cotton.Initiative Recycled.Plastic.Weaving Landing.page Online.Shop
Auction Unique.Artisan.Pieces
Wholesale.catalog All.News.and.Events
Artisan.News
Curated.Exhibits
Links
The.Campus
Careers
Separate.contact.page
*.where.does.this.go?
*.where.does.form.go?
Contact
Takes.you.to.contact.page,.saying.you've.signe *.is.there.a.newsletter?.Where.are.emails.coll d.up ected?
*Broken
form
Newsletter.sign.up Facebook./.Youtube Feedback Terms.of.Use Privacy
Ecosystem Villages
Recycled.Plastic Ecosystem Process Artisans Villages Wood.Carving
Metal.Bells Ecosystem Process Artisans Villages
Sitemap: Assessment PROS
Information is generally thorough and concise Content is grouped accurately and thematically The lengthiest sections - individual craft pages, and artisan stories - are accessible through an intuitive user flow
CONS
Shop and News are not organized clearly and contain redundant sub-pages Footer pages almost all redundant Navigating within subsections - for example, between individual craft pages and between artisan stories, is difficult. There are many duplicate artisan stories Inconsistent nomenclature and navigation (categories in Crafts sub navigation, they don’t match Crafts landing page)
Part 2 Assess written and visual content
Written Content: Definition Just like it sounds - all written information across khamir.org
Text in context
Text samples Broken Links
Emerging, cheaper factory-made products in the local market have caused the local value chain to become fragmented. Meghwals are no longer converting raw hide into leather in Kachchh due to the social stigmas attached to this practice. Now, leather artisans are dependent on external markets for both raw material and trade.
Traditional community linkages based on this craft are mostly broken because leather artisans cannot depend on their former market. Maldharis and farmers are no longer wearing traditional leather footwear, preferring more modern forms of dress. With no control on raw materials, artisans are not able to insulate themselves from the highly fluctuating market prices. The price of raw leather has risen 20 times since 2000, but the selling price of finished leather goods has only risen 3 times. Without proper training and linkages, artisans are not able to reach the right market segment nor able to understand the needs of the segment.
Many artisans are leaving leather craft, opting to work in factories. Local leather craft is losing its high quality, adopting a cheapy, kitschy aesthetic that satisfies regional tourism.
Kachchh, commonly written as "Kutch," is the largest district in India and is located in Gujarat state. It is a mosaic of diverse landscapes, people, and cultures that together create a distinct identity that is unmistakable to those who come here. The district is surrounded by ocean on one side, and the Rann of Kachchh, a vast salt desert, on the other. Once a major trade hub of the Indus Valley delta, Kachchh has long been a melting pot defined by fluid boundaries. It is a meeting point of people, cultures, faiths, languages, and traditions across a diversity of ecosystems and terrains. A place that is constantly changing, yet feels curiously unchanged.
Our approach is four-pronged...
Terms of Engagement support small and medium artisan units by offering production commitments for a minimum of six months per year. Units are also provided with advances, raw materials, design input, and quick payments. Established or larger artisan units are engaged for large or specialized orders. While Khamir does not yet offer stake holding for artisans, wages are generally fixed at 25% above prevailing market rates or higher. For groups who have been consistently engaged there is a 5% premium on quality and production. We encourage wholesale buyers into two types of roles: to be an organizing agency or to work in connection with a large artisan unit.
The tree canopied over me. The clouds, white and puffy, glided slowly across the western sky. Towards the east and into the distance, the rise of the hills faded into the horizon. An ant slowly made its way up the tree. I let out a laugh. I remembered how I was slowly making my way up and through with my art. I got smiles, I got scowls, an occasional laugh at the sight of my work.
I sit cross-legged on the shop floor. Having just brought in my recent batch of woven rugs, I sit back. I find a faint smile making its way across my face as I think back on the years.
At Khamir, we strive to create a democratic and empowering space - a common roof under which a range of stakeholders can exchange ideas and collaborate. We work to shift consumer perspectives and raise the cultural value placed on crafts. Our vision is of a vibrant, sustainable Indian craft sector in which crafts and artisans alike are highly valued by people worldwide.
Khamir operates out of a unique campus in Kukma, Kachchh. Located 15 kilometres from Bhuj, the campus is a space for artisans, resource groups and institutions, buyers, suppliers and craft lovers from around the world to gather under one roof to exchange ideas, collaborate and learn. The space is always alive with potters creating clay masterpieces or imaginative textiles being woven by resident weavers.
The Campus was established in 2007 with the support of the Government of Gujarat and the Confederation of Indian Indutries. It was designed by Professor Neelkanth Chhaya of CEPT University, Ahmedabad. The campus was constructed using sustainable, earth based construction technologies such as wattle and daub, rammed earth, and stabilized earth blocks. Construction was overseen by Hunnarshala, a Bhuj-based organisation that develops building technologies to construct disaster-safe, ecologically friendly and sustainable buildings.
Written Content: Assessment PROS
Good amount of text for the web - pages are not bloated with dense text blocks Good use of “chunking� - ie, paragraphs are short, headers are often used to allow easier scanning Each page has a clear purpose and content hierarchy
CONS
Nomenclature is at times inconsistent Language used can become flowery and romanticized Sentence structures can get lengthy and convoluted News content is not up to date Artisan stories all follow a similar narrative and do not feel authentic There are some pages with missing content (Shop) Width of text on pages is too wide
Visual Content: Definition All photography, illustration, video. Use of color, and typography. Also includes page layouts across the site, and how images and layouts scale down for on various browser sizes and devices.
Images in context
Photography and illustration
Color palette, typography, branded elements Helvetica Neue Helvetica Neue! HELVETICA NEUE
Times New Roman Times New Roman Times New Roman
Visual Content: Assessment PROS
Lots of photography on every page breaks up blocks of text and adds visual interest Photography shows diversity of crafts and the people who make them Nice composition and framing of photos Color palette feels authentic and vibrant Typography is consistent and clean
CONS
Photos are low resolution Craft process illustrations add a hand-drawn touch No full width images, so not taking advantage of wider screens Visual elements like gradients feel out of date There is some inconsistent styling, such as some photos are full color while others are black and white No video content, even though Khamir produces lots of it
Page layouts: Definition The combination of visual and written content. How is it arranged into a narrative on each page? Does it “gracefully degrade” as browser sizes and devices are smaller and “progressively enhance” for larger screens and faster web access? Are rollover states and subtle animations present?
Responsive states; Rollover states
Page Layouts: Assessment PROS
The site does scale down to smaller screens Rollover states exist and add a nice level of detail
CONS
Menu bar does not scale down well and takes up too much room on smaller screens Margins become too small on small screens
Part 3 Provide actionable recommendations
Easy Fixes The following pages of recommendations are changes that involve removing content blocks, relining sections, or renaming sections and tags. These can all be easily accomplished on the current platform with the current design.
Header & Homepage Remove the gradient at the top of the page. It’s an outdated design element. Remove the small Khamir logo that appears on hover over Main Nav items Move Khamir logo to upper left corner Add more padding between above and below the description of Khamir. Does anyone use the login functionality in the header? if not, remove it.
Header & Homepage
About page Link the artisans page (About > Artisans) to the new microsite I’ve created. Ensure that Crafts > Artisans are also relinked to the new Squarespace site. Or, at the very least, remove all the duplicate artisans from About > Artisans. Change order of subnav under About to reflect what happens when you click on About text without selecting a subnav option - it goes to Khamir subsection. So new subnav order should be Khamir, Kachchh, Artisans.
About page - New artisans microsite
About page - subnav change
Crafts page Remove breadcrumbs. These aren’t used consistently throughout, and it’s a small enough site with enough subnavs that you don’t need them. Create new and more intuitive categories for the crafts. I suggest: Weaving & Textiles, Painting & Printing, Wood, Metal & Ceramics. Make sure that the sub nav reflects these. Make sure Bandhani and Embroidery are tagged under Weaving & Textiles OR Remove crafts that Khamir does not work with. Reasoning: embroidery itself is a big category that we aren’t splitting out into all its component parts. Better to focus on the areas that Khamir knows best. Make Bela printing only exist under either diminishing crafts
Crafts page - remove breadcrumbs
Crafts page - clearer nomenclature
Crafts page - remove duplicate Bela
Work page When you click on Our Work without selecting a subnav option, it should go to Engagement, not a separate landing page. The content from Camel Wool, Kala Cotton, and Recycled Plastic (Work > Innovation > Camel Wool) should be integrated with Crafts > Textiles > Camel Wool. It could be a separate tab, or under the Ecosystem tab.
Work page - remove landing page with no content
Work page - combine innovation with Crafts pages
+
Shop page This whole section should be hidden and replaced with text that says shop is under construction, please contact XYZ for information. The navigation is very confusing and there is no up to date content. Pottery and Kala Cotton can be accessed from Shop > Online Shop or from Shop > Auction, but Ajrakh and Batik can only be accessed from Shop > Unique artisan pieces. Kala Cotton, Ajrakh, and Batik have no items in them. And Pottery I am assuming is not actually a live auction. Wholesale catalogue. What happens when you log in? Does anyone actually use this?
Shop page - Online Shop, Unique Artisan Pieces, and Auction are very similar
Shop page - no content
News page Remove the subnav. When you click on News, it should take you to All News and Events, which I am assuming contains all the content within Artisan News and Curated Exhibits. If it doesn’t, it should.
Visit page Leave as is until we set up Airbnb. Where does Guest House form go if you fill it out?
Footer The following footer items are duplicates to Main Nav items and should be removed: About Khamir, Events, Guesthouse, Jobs & Training, Partner with Us, Careers. Links: this doesn’t go anywhere. Remove it. Contact: Why do we need a separate page for this? Can we just provide basic address, phone, and email information in the footer itself? Where does the form go? Newsletter: Do we have one? If not, remove this option. Feedback: Where does this form go? Does anyone actually use it? If not, remove. Privacy: This link is broken. If it’s important content, then it should be updated. Update with vector version of Facebook and Youtube logos.
More difficult fixes, principles for design and development Overhauling the whole site with the help of a professional design team would bring the site up to modern web standards. This would be a bigger investment. Here are some specific changes and principles I would suggest to bear in mind should you decide to undertake a longer term project involving writing, photography, web design, and development. If Khamir pursues these changes, I can provide visual detail similar to what I did for the Easy Fixes section.
Visual Content Styles
Use consistent photography style. No black and white images Use full width, higher resolution images throughout to leverage the fact that we’re working with beautiful handicrafts Main menu items shouldn’t be attached to the image, because this looks strange when it breaks to two lines on smaller screens. Instead, the KHAMIR logo should be in the top left, and navigation can stretch out across it. Or you could use a hidden menu (hamburger, etc) Work > Innovation page should have more visual entry points to Kala Cotton, Camel Wool, Recycled Plastic Transitions for responsive states should be more elegant - on smaller screens, menu items take up too much room.
Backend/Wordpress
From the backend, include the ability to have full width images, half width, and cropped everywhere there are images in a template From the backend, add the ability to add or remove tabs within a Craft page. Does this already exist? Add the ability to include video content on homepage, news sections, and for each individual Craft page Add ability to have image captions in places where it would help users understand the content
Written Content Content
Review all text to ensure consistent voice, consistent nomenclature, and doesn’t use passive voice or flowery language. Just use Kachchh or Kuchchh or Kutch, but not all three. It should be easier to understand what it is exactly that Khamir does. The Our Work section in particular could be consolidated, or expanded, and some of this information could be brought to the home page
Coding
Create wider margins around text blocks so that they don’t flow all the way to the edge of the page on pages like Crafts > Ajrakh Use more sophisticated and contemporary typography throughout. For banners on Craft pages (i.e., Leather Art), text should be coded to lie on top of images rather than be part of the image itself. Helps with SEO and with site maintenance. Or just remove this as a design feature. Add ability to filter News, which is now just going to be a single landing page and then individual news pages (All News & Events) by type. You could also include Job postings here.
Maintenance Update content more frequently. The sections that should have refreshed content are Artisan Stories, and News & Events Add ability to pull in featured content onto the home page to make it more dynamic and pertinent to current events Make web content easier to update and control by key staff people. Is it currently built on Wordpress? Or some other CMS? Ensure that there is a clear point person who oversees all web content to ensure a consistent, brand-relevant tone of imagery and writing
Adding new sections Online store, we’ve already discussed. This is a big and separate project to make effective use of ecommerce, either through your own site or on sites like Etsy. Could use Shopify platform, or Squarespace. Create microsites or add a Main Menu section for events. Create fully immersive experiences that really show all the content and thinking that goes into each yearly exhibit. They would be cross linked to each individual craft’s pages under Main Menu > Craft.
Best Practices on the web Consistent navigation and nomenclature
UX
Intuitive user flows, i.e. people can find what they’re looking for quickly and easily through a clear pathway of clicks
Clearly chunked content on each page, i.e. good use of headlines, paragraphs short in width and length to promote easy scanning
User experience is seamless across browsers and mobile devices
Subtle animated elements for user actions like for rollover states, screen resizing
Performs well even at low bandwidths (loads quickly)- hierarchy of content on each page follows an intuitive narrative
Beautiful, full bleed photography
BRAND/VISUAL
Sophisticated, easy to scan typography
Clean but brand-relevant personality for visual styles
Incorporates video Timely, relevant content that is frequently updated
Thank you!