The Interactive Media Master's Capstone project is completed in the spring semester of the program, is self-led, and shows a culmination of the skills that students learn in their ten months at Elon University.
Visit the site!
The Green Room is an interactive website for dancers, their parents, and their teachers focused on helping pre-professional and professional dancers navigate their mental health during injury and recovery.The website includes a blog, advice guides, and interactive recovery trackers. The main content of the site revolves around the relationship between dance, injury, and identity, as that research inspired the creation of this project.
I chose this topic for my capstone project because I have a personal connection to the cause and to the community. As a dance major, I was injured in my junior year of college and had to take an entire year away from training. It took a considerable toll on my mental health. It is difficult to explain to someone who does not dance what it feels like to lose your physical, creative, and social outlet all in one go. I am passionate about creating a community of dancers to help each other, and to create something that will help others understand as well.
The Green Room is an interactive website for dancers, their parents, and their teachers focused on helping pre-professional and professional dancers navigate their mental health during injury and recovery.The website includes a blog, advice guides, and interactive recovery trackers. The main content of the site revolves around the relationship between dance, injury, and identity, as that research inspired the creation of this project.
I chose this topic for my capstone project because I have a personal connection to the cause and to the community. As a dance major, I was injured in my junior year of college and had to take an entire year away from training. It took a considerable toll on my mental health. It is difficult to explain to someone who does not dance what it feels like to lose your physical, creative, and social outlet all in one go. I am passionate about creating a community of dancers to help each other, and to create something that will help others understand as well.
To create a safe space for dancers to learn about and manage their mental health while in conversation with others.
To broaden the conversation surrounding mental health in the dance community on social media and beyond.
To provide educational resources for dancers and their support systems about the mental health effects of injury.
When developing my audiences, I had to take into account the niche nature of my subject. The dance community is small, but diverse, and the more I researched the intersection of injury and mental health the broader my audience became within this very specific community. It was not only important for me to reach the dancers themselves, but also their support systems–specifically, their parents, peers, and teachers. I realized that this kind of message was important to not only be communicated to the dancer's themselves, but to the people that they would be communicating with.
From my own personal experience, it can be very hard to find ways to describe what you are feeling or experiencing to a non-dancer because we are so highly trained to communicate nonverbally–not to mention trying to explain the culture within the dance community. I chose to reach out to dancers directly before expanding out to the community, and conducted a survey asking about their own personal experiences, what resources they used, and what they would like to see from a resource like the one I was building. From there, I chose which aspects I thought would be realistic for me
After conducting a preliminary survey of my various audiences, I developed three personas. The first persona was of a young dancer experiencing her first injury. The second was of a parent of a dancer, and the third was of a dance teacher. Each of these personas reflects one of the audiences that are directly being appealed to by the site in both branding and in resources.
Production on this project began via wire framing. Though I had a few paper sketches, most of my wire framing was done on Adobe XD in both high-fidelity and low-fidelity formats. I used these prototypes for my first user test.
I created the branding for The Green Room to be a reflection of shapes, objects, and colors that might be common in a backstage environment. The name of the project was derived from backstage green rooms that often serve as waiting rooms. Though a dancer may not be in a dressing room getting ready or on stage performing, they are still involved in the community and in the space. The established values are “Empowerment Through Community” and “Structure and Support,” which are reflected in the deliverables chosen to display on the site in the guides and recovery trackers.
I conducted two user tests on this project, the first on wireframes and the second on the completed site to ensure that my navigation was not hindering and that all of the content was accessible.
Procedure
This user test was conducted in three parts. The first was a few minutes of time for users to click through the site and familiarize themselves with the site. The second was a series of three prompts to lead them through the navigation. The third was a series of four questions to directly address some of the goals of this user test, followed by an opportunity for additional feedback. This test was conducted on five subjects, some with dance experience and some without.For those who were dancers, I asked them to navigate the site as themselves, but with a theoretical injury. For the two who did not have dance experience, I asked them to navigate the site as a peer of a dancer as their relationship to dance was through a close friend. For the purposes of this report, the dancer group is called Group A, and the non-dancer group is called Group B.
Summary of Results
None of the users found the navigation confusing, beyond momentary confusion caused by lack of content/context. The users did not feel as if there was too much scrolling or clicking, and said that the navigation break down was useful–especially on the ‘Guides’ page. None of the users found any part of the site to not be intuitive, including all of the interaction and navigation. None of the users felt that the animations were distracting or effected the usability of any of the features.
Procedure
This user test was conducted in three parts, much like the previous test. The first section was three questions asking their relationship to dance, followed by two questions about what, if any, digital mental health resources they use and how often they search for them. The second section of the test was composed of three prompts asking users to navigate around the site and determine which tools or resources they would use to complete the prompt. The third and final section of the test is a post-test questionnaire that asks for some general feedback on the navigation, animation elements and layout of the site. This test was conducted on six participants–four dancers, one parent, and one teacher.Each prompt was completed, I asked them to rate their experience on a scale of one to five, one being easy and five being impossible.
Summary of Results
All of the participants rated the first prompt as easy, opting for either the guides or the trackers. The second prompt was also rated unanimously easy, with participants choosing the Learn page, FAQ, guides, and blog. The third prompt’s rating was split between one and two, though participants went to the resource that I was pointing them towards. Overall, the site navigation was rated a one for easy. They did not feel that they were scrolling through too many pages.The animations did not cause any issues or distractions.
Check out my project presentation in the 2021 iMedia Capstone Exhibition.
I was honored for my project to be featured in a Today at Elon article, written by Tommy Kopetskie from the Elon School of Communications. Read the article here.
"For her capstone project, James created an interactive website for dancers, their parents, and their instructors to help dancers navigate their mental health during injury and recovery. Fittingly, the website is called The Green Room, in reference to a space between the dressing room and the stage. “Injury puts you in between,” James said."
"At the conclusion of her presentation, James said her project revealed much about herself, including how she can best organize her thoughts and move a project forward. Coincidentally, she noted that lacking a game plan – and clear direction – can “trip up” both a creator and a choreographer.“I learned about to my own creative process,” she said. “I learned how I work with myself.”"
