Villa Zebra

Villa Zebra, a children’s museum in Rotterdam for children aged 2-12, gave us a challenge: redesign their website, without language. They wanted to create a new image and look, to redefine their standing as a laboratory for children. With this we started researching, defining and designing.

Year
2024-2025

Client
Villa Zebra

A young girl dressed as a doctor playing with stuffed animals on a table in a play medical setting, with a colorful hospital-themed poster in the background.

How could we achieve a full website without language? That was our challenge during this project. First however, we had to pick a target audience. We quickly decided on older teachers and pedagogical employees, but we would also focus on teachers and pedagogical employees in general.

We started doing research into other websites that did not use language, such as designer portfolios. We quickly realized however, that we needed language. Badly. We decided that it was the best course to still use language, but as little of it as possible. And then, we ran into a problem with the user group in our research, explained below.

Glass building with the words 'villa zebra' on it, bicycles parked outside, water, bridge, and city skyline in the background.

My tasks during this project were as follows:

  • Planning

  • Deskresearch

  • Fieldresearch

  • Deliverables such as current and wished-for situation and various prototypes

  • Prototyping

  • Presenting

So, our problem. In doing tests with our target audience, we realized that there was a big problem with the current website. Our tests showed that users were confused with two buttons: “Met de klas” and “Tickets”. As it turned out, teachers could not get tickets for their class when they clicked on “Tickets”. They had to click “Met de klas”, scroll down endlessly and fill out a huge form, after which many mails had to be exchanged in order to actually plan a group outing. When regular customers went to “Tickets”, they were transported to a different tab, which confused older users.

With this, we had our goal in mind. Redesign the website with teachers in mind. The website had to be presentable to the class, and the process to get tickets had to be streamlined. With that, we went to brainstorming and prototyping.

Research

Two women sit at a wooden table with papers, a smartphone, and a keyboard, engaging in a discussion or activity. One woman, with dark hair and wearing a gray jacket, points to the papers, while the other woman, with curly hair and wearing a red top, listens attentively. The setting appears to be indoors near a large window.
Children playing with large foam blocks and a playhouse in an indoor play area at a Dutch ZELF program for children aged 2 to 6.

Prototype

Group of six people standing in a classroom, smiling, with one holding a trophy. Background shows a large screen with a presentation, and a person working at a podium.

We made several prototypes, for which we did A/B testing and various other user tests. Eventually we decided to make one page, without scrolling. This way, the teacher could easily present it to the class, but it was also organized and un-complicated. We designed laptop-first, but also made a version for phones. The ticket-booking process was totally streamlined, and users experienced it to be faster, easier and it encouraged them to actually book a group outing with their class.

We also presented our prototype at an exposition, where we won an award, given by Villa Zebra, for best concept. We stuck to their style, but totally revamped their idea.

My experience

So how did I experience this project? It was the first project I did in year 2, which was quite different. It was a much longer process, but that meant I was able to go quite deep and really find the cause behind the problem. I did a lot of prototyping, especially in Figma, which gave me a lot of extra experience in the programme. The cherry on top of the cake was the award of course, which we were very grateful for.