Description

The Jazz History Database is a non-profit organization at WPI that archives recordings, photographs, and other jazz artifacts from around the world that might otherwise deteriorate. This archive, accessible at jazzhistorydatabase.com, was previously maintained by students and faculty who built the website by hand. Our goal was to design, build and document a web-based tool to allow volunteers and international correspondents to upload digitized jazz artifacts into a simple web form that would subsequently output and publish template-based web pages.

The Contributor Portal empowers jazz musicians, archivists and educators from all around the world to effortlessly contribute to the JHDB’s online museum without technical barriers. It's designed to be accessible to non-technical users that might be daunted by more complex archival software, and thus comes with a video walkthrough on the landing page

Personal Accomplishments

• Developed a reliable zero-cost architecture utilizing Dropbox API and GCP free tier

• Successfully designed an intuitive interface for non-technical users

• Conducted ongoing user experience research and iterated quickly based on user feedback

• Led a small team in all aspects of design, development, release, and post-release support

• Created instructional materials for non-technical users to gain familiarity and comfort with the tool prior to first use

• Co-authored a published research paper detailing the project’s design process and technical implementation