This project focused on finding a learning gap and creating a product for an independent high-end interior design firm located in Denver, CO called Recherché Interior Design. Through analysis, myself and the business owner found a need to educate new clients on Recherché’s interior design process, services offered, and the general types of billing found throughout the interior design process.
Our first rendition of the product was a responsive WordPress website. The website requirements were that it should be easily accessed and reviewed by new clients and a provide a secondary content format such as a pdf brochure.
Recherché Interior Design business is a little over one year old and is solely operated by an interior designer with more than 25 years of experience as a co-owner leading a high-end design firm. Recherché currently has an official website which can be found by visiting www.rechercheid.com. Before I started this project, the business didn’t have any branded content centered around the design process or what to expect on a typical project.
The business owner is a strong advocate for face-to-face communication as she conducts most of the client communication via phone, email, or onsite at her client’s location. Starting off with established projects and being a new firm, Recherché hasn’t had the time to further develop instructional materials to help educate clients to better understand the design process.
The internship started off with a needs analysis plan and information gathering to determine how a product could fill a gap within the business. This was done by creating a 10-question survey provided to 11 of Recherché’s previous and current clients and a 25-question interview with the business owner that was conducted over two Zoom meetings.
The client survey illustrated the need to understand the design process, services offered, and billing types more clearly. The business owner interview answers also described a strong need to focus on these topics to help set client expectations throughout the entire design process. Through multiple meetings with the owner we also wanted to incorporate content that conveyed the company’s value, experience, custom offerings, and craftsmanship.
A simple, qualitative, and formative evaluation was conducted. Modifications were suggested after the site was pilot tested by three homeowners interested in interior design updates and by the client herself.
Near the end of the first iteration I conducted the evaluation to determine how helpful and user-friendly the new website was in portraying the Recherché Interior Design process, services offered, and billing types to a new client.
Through this evaluation I wanted to identify areas of improvement so we could most effectively educate the client and obtain feedback on ways to make the interface and content more user-friendly and appealing.
This project helped me to gain a good bird’s eye view perspective on the instructional design process in general and learn more about a business in which I had no prior knowledge of.
It helped me to educate the client on what instructional design is and how it could serve her newly formed business and help to better serve her clients.
For this project we’ve nearly scratched the surface on the content that could be created, nonetheless we established a brand-new set of web pages and a brochure that can be improved upon as time and resources allow.
In reflection I’ve learned that instructional design serves not only in an academic environment, but can help organizations, businesses, and non-profits in the public and private sector. There are many people who don’t know what instructional design is or how it can help with improvements on various levels. I feel like there is always a need for expressing excellent communication, effective processes, and presenting the most clear and useable information to a user. Some organizations know where the need exists, and others might not. Some organizations might already have existing designs, available content, and perhaps structured requirements for performance or certifications and others might not. Another reason why the information gathering, and analysis process conducted by instructional designers is vital.