MEMO

To: Maria Jenkins

From: Tyler McDonald, Hailey Seifert, Nathan Thomas, Hannah Zelinski
Date: 4/21/2024
Subject: UC RPW Capstone: Final Deliverable Overview

We are excited to present the culmination of our efforts in the Rhetoric & Professional Writing
Capstone project at the University of Cincinnati. This semester, we have focused on creating
accessible and engaging content for Pyramid Hill Sculpture Park & Museum, aimed at
enhancing the visitor experience for diverse audiences, including those on the autism spectrum.

Throughout the semester, our team dedicated time to researching the effectiveness and history
of social stories, creating personas to guide our content towards specific visitor needs,
designing social stories that cater to neurodivergent visitors, auditing the website, analyzing its
user-friendliness, and suggesting improvements to optimize visitor engagement and information
accessibility.

Our deliverables for this project include:

● A series of seven social stories designed around various park features

● Supplementary materials such as a social story style guide and introductory page
● A comprehensive website audit, offering recommendations for enhancing site traffic and
user engagement

We intend for the social stories in particular to be a starting point for you, and any modifications
or additions that you see fit can be completed easily with our style guide and templates.

You will find a detailed description of our project goals, audience analysis, research
methodologies, and content creation processes within the following report. The table of contents
will aid in easy navigation through the various sections. We would be happy to answer any
questions if you require further clarification on the deliverables.

Collaborating with you and the Pyramid Hill Sculpture Park & Museum has been a very valuable
experience. We appreciate the opportunity to contribute to such a meaningful project and hope
our efforts will significantly enhance the visitor experience at the park. Thank you for the
wonderful opportunity and the invaluable insights throughout the semester.

Sincerely,
Tyler McDonald, Hailey Seifert, Nathan Thomas, Hannah Zelinski

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Pyramid Hill Sculpture Park &
Museum
University of Cincinnati Rhetoric &
Professional Writing Capstone:
Final Deliverable Overview

Prepared By:
Tyler McDonald, Hailey Seifert, Nathan Thomas, Hannah Zelinski
Table of Contents
Table of Contents.........................................................................................................................1
Introduction..................................................................................................................................2
Our Goals................................................................................................................................ 2
Accessing the Deliverables......................................................................................................2
Deliverable 1: Social Stories.......................................................................................................3
Research................................................................................................................................. 3
So, What is a Social Story?............................................................................................... 3
Site Visit............................................................................................................................. 4
Personas..................................................................................................................................4
Payton Hall | High Support Need Child..............................................................................6
Piper Harlow | Low Support Need Child............................................................................ 7
Brian Conner | General Education Teacher....................................................................... 8
Catherine Bloom | Special Education Teacher...................................................................9
Katelyn Sunfield | Uninformed Parent..............................................................................10
Cheyenne Stelmack | Informed Parent............................................................................ 11
Design Process......................................................................................................................12
Writing Process......................................................................................................................13
Deliverable 2: Website Audit.................................................................................................... 15
Criteria................................................................................................................................... 15
Personas................................................................................................................................15
Miranda Drew | Family Visitor.......................................................................................... 16
Marc Anderson | Event Planner....................................................................................... 17
Kyle Hill | Volunteer..........................................................................................................18
Main Areas of Interest............................................................................................................19
SEO & Analytics...............................................................................................................19
Website Layout................................................................................................................ 20
Miscellaneous.................................................................................................................. 20
Mobile Website................................................................................................................ 22
Conclusion................................................................................................................................. 23
References................................................................................................................................. 24
Appendices................................................................................................................................ 25

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Introduction
Earlier this year, Pyramid Hill Sculpture Park & Museum reached out to the University of
Cincinnati’s Rhetoric & Professional Writing Capstone program to recruit our team of students to
complete a few projects for the park. We were given the option to complete either a series of
social stories, an audit of the Pyramid Hill website, or a visitor takeaway sheet that highlighted
some of the pieces in the ancient sculpture collection. We ultimately decided to take on the
social story project as that is the task which interested us the most, and we later decided to also
take on the website audit as an additional deliverable.

Our Goals
Our overall goal with this project was to help Pyramid Hill to increase its reach. The social
stories represented an opportunity to make the park more accessible to young visitors on the
autism spectrum, while the website audit represented the opportunity to make pyramidhill.org1
easier to use, therefore generating more site traffic and, ultimately, more visitors.

Accessing the Deliverables

The deliverables have been sent to Pyramid Hill (pyramidhillsculpturepark@gmail.org) as well
as Maria Jenkins (mariajenkins0@gmail.com) personally in the form of a google drive folder.
This folder includes a subfolder for the social stories and related materials (Appendix A) and a
subfolder for the website audit (Appendix B). The deliverables folder is also linked in the
“Appendices” section of this report. All aforementioned parties should have the full permissions
required to edit and share all of the deliverables.

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Deliverable 1: Social Stories
The first deliverable we undertook for Pyramid Hill was a series of social stories that could be
used by neurodivergent and autistic visitors at the park. Maria initially proposed that we create a
single social story for the entire park, but we realized shortly into our preliminary research that it
would be better to produce several social stories, each covering different aspects of the park.
Ultimately, we produced a series of seven social stories, along with a social story template/style
guide and a short social story introductory page, all of which are detailed below.

Research
At the start of this project, none of us knew what a social story even was, so we had to do a
good bit of research to get ourselves up to speed. We began our research by looking for
information about social stories, such as their history and effectiveness. Some of the articles
that we looked over were provided to us by Maria, while the rest we found on our own. Some of
the articles we used to base our research off of included but not limited to “Task Analysis in
Applied Behavior Analysis Therapy: Strategies and Examples”2 and “Social Narratives” on the
Sensory Resources Guide for Museums site by the NYU Ability Project.3 Our research led us to
a better understanding of why social stories were created and how to make them most effective.

We were also able to find and use other social stories to use as inspiration for the layouts of our
own, some of which came from the Metropolitan Museum of Art4 and the Cincinnati Art
Museum.5 We also spoke with Dr. Todd Haydon, professor of Special Education at the
University of Cincinnati. We met with him to ask him questions about accessibility writing and
language surrounding autism spectrum disorder (ASD). He also reviewed our social stories and
provided us with feedback later on in the semester.

Dr. Haydon also imparted upon us that, in his experience and professional opinion, social
stories are generally most effective when they are specifically tailored for each individual. This is
obviously something that we could not achieve with the Pyramid Hill stories. Dr. Haydon advised
us that if we wanted to make generally applicable social stories, we should make multiple
versions of each one for specific demographics, such as age group. This is a practice we saw
some other institutions employing with their social stories–the MET, for example, provides social
stories specifically for children visiting with their family, children visiting on a school trip, and
teens and adults.6

In order to keep the scope of this project manageable, we decided to just stick to making one
version of the social stories. However, this insight did give us the idea to make the pre-formatted
social story template (Appendix A-1) so that Pyramid Hill could expand on the stories that we
created in order to include more specific demographics in the future.

So, What is a Social Story?

After all of our research, we came up with the following definition of social stories:

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A social story is a descriptive narrative designed to inform individuals, primarily those on the
autism spectrum, about appropriate social behaviors within specific, often unfamiliar,
circumstances. Social stories outline explicit information about social situations, including what
one can expect in specific scenarios and how they can appropriately respond. The goal of a
social story is to help an individual prepare for a specific setting, therefore facilitating smoother
social interactions and mitigating any potential discomfort or overstimulation they may
experience.

We used this definition to inform our goals and methodologies while producing the social stories
for Pyramid Hill.

Site Visit
We concluded our research with a site visit to Pyramid Hill. The visit was conducted to help us
visualize the route(s) a guest may take when visiting the park, as well as the places they may
want to stop and visit. During the visit, we were able to ask Maria about particular trouble areas
and to photograph different parts of the park to highlight in the stories. Prior to the visit, we used
the park map to break down the seven main aspects of the park that we thought visitors might
need a social story for, these areas included: the entrance, the Gallery Walk, the Art Carts, the
Pyramid House, picnic areas, the pavilion, and the exit. These sections eventually became the
seven social stories (Appendices A-3 to A-9).

Personas
For the social stories project, we created three sets of personas. Pyramid Hill has a broad
audience of visitors, and the social stories would impact a large number of them, and so we
wanted to encapsulate a vast range of potential guests. The following six personas are a
depiction of the potential demographic we had in mind when writing the social story.

First, we have two children on the autism spectrum: Payton and Piper.

Payton is a first grade student who is autistic with high support needs. She is excited to go on
her class field trip to Pyramid Hill, and commonly uses social stories in her life.

Piper is a third grade student who is autistic with low support needs. He is a mostly
self-sufficient child and is excited for his family’s day trip to Pyramid Hill. He typically only uses
social stories in settings where he is anxious about his new surroundings.

Then, we have two educators: Brian and Catherine.

Brian is a 3rd grade teacher, who is planning on taking his students to Pyramid Hill for a field
trip. He is excited about taking his students since it will be their first time at an art museum.
However, he is anxious because he is not sure how they will react and fears that they will not
behave appropriately in the park.

Catherine is a Special Education teacher who has three students on the autism spectrum. She
is planning on taking her students to Pyramid Hill to increase their social interactions and show

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them new places. She fears that her students won’t understand that some of the sculptures are
interactive and others are not. She is also nervous about the students hurting themselves or the
artwork.

Lastly, we have two parents: Katelyn and Cheyenne.

Katelyn is a mother whose child has recently been diagnosed with autism. She is excited to take
her child to Pyramid Hill, but she is nervous about managing her child’s sensitivities in public.
She is unaware of social stories and other accessibility options at the park.

Cheyenne is a mother and pediatric psychologist who has years of experience in ASD care and
also is highly aware of her autistic child’s needs. Her and her child are excited about their visit to
Pyramid Hill and are excited about the social stories option, as they know social stories have
helped them navigate new places easily in the past.

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Payton Hall | High Support Need Child
Name: Payton Hall

Age: 6

Occupation: First grade student

Characteristics: Payton is autistic and she requires a lot of

support from those around her in order to operate day-to-day.

She is more sensitive than other kids to certain stimuli like loud
noises, bright lights, textures, etc., and can have a hard time
adjusting to new or unexpected circumstances. Because of her
young age and the unique way her autism presents, Payton has
difficulty regulating her emotions and communicating her
feelings to others, and she is prone to having meltdowns when
she is overstimulated.

Because of her special needs, Payton works closely with an aide at school and her parents
have taken extensive measures to accommodate her needs at home.

Motivations
Payton is excited about her class's upcoming field trip to Pyramid Hill, looking forward to
experiencing the sculptures and sharing this experience with her classmates. Both she and her
teachers hope that the field trip will be a fun, stress-free experience that accommodates her
sensory needs. Payton’s parents and teachers have made social stories for her before in order
to help her with certain tasks and scenarios that she struggles with.

Pain Points
● The anticipation of visiting a new place brings anxiety due to the uncertainty of the
environment.

● Payton has never been to Pyramid Hill before, and the lack of familiarity could potentially
overstimulate her, leading to distress during the trip.

● Preparation and support from her teachers and aides is critical to ensure a positive
experience.

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Piper Harlow | Low Support Need Child
Name: Piper Harlow

Age: 8

Occupation: Third grade student

Characteristics: Piper is autistic and he requires a bit of

extra support from those around him in order to operate
day-to-day.

He is more sensitive than other kids to certain stimuli like

loud noises, bright lights, textures, etc., and can have a
hard time adjusting to new or unexpected circumstances.
Piper has emotional regulation and communication skills
comparable to those of his neurotypical peers, but he
sometimes needs help working through his feelings when
he is overstimulated.

Piper has some special accommodations at school for things like testing, but is otherwise a
self-sufficient student. His parents have taken some measures to accommodate his needs at
home, but they have not felt the need to make any significant lifestyle changes for his sake.

Motivations
Piper is eager for the day trip to Pyramid Hill with his family, excited to explore outside his usual
home and school environments. He looks forward to the activities and the opportunity to spend
time with his family. Piper doesn’t regularly need to use social stories, as most day-to-day
activities that go on at school or at home are things that he can manage by himself or with some
help from an adult. Piper and his parents do sometimes use social stories, however, to help to
ease his anxiety about substantial new scenarios like riding on the bus for the first time or
visiting the zoo.

Pain Points
● Piper feels anxious about the unfamiliar aspects of the park.

● His parents are unable to provide detailed answers about what to expect.

● The lack of specific information about the park's layout and activities contributes to his
nervousness, as he prefers to have a clear understanding of new environments before
engaging with them.

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Brian Conner | General Education Teacher
Name: Brian Conner

Age: 35

Occupation: 3rd Grade Teacher

Characteristics: Brian is a 3rd grade teacher at a

local elementary school planning his next class field
trip. He wants to diversify his students' range of
knowledge by taking them to Pyramid Hill so they can
learn more about art and history.

Brian has two students in his class who are on the

autism spectrum, and he is not sure how they and the
rest of the class will react to going to the park and
wants a way to help set boundaries for students of all
learning levels. That way all of his students are able to
enjoy the day. Brian has not heard of social stories
and is not sure how they can be used.

Motivations
Brian is motivated to use new systems to help students better understand situations. He wants
all of his students to have a good day at the field trip, with as few hiccups as possible.

Pain Points
● Experiences anxiety when he takes his students to new locations.

● Stressed that his students will not behave properly.

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Catherine Bloom | Special Education Teacher
Name: Catherine Bloom

Age: 28

Occupation: Special Education Teacher

Characteristics: Catherine Bloom is a Special Education

teacher at a local elementary school. She works with the same
three students who are all on the autism spectrum. The three
students tend to be sensory seeking, mostly non-verbal, and
are all around the ages of 7–9 years old.

She knows a lot about social stories and tends to use them
with her three students as a way of showing standards when
visiting new places, such as the Pyramid Hill Sculpture Park &
Museum.

Motivations
Catherine is excited about taking her three students to Pyramid Hill. She believes that there will
be a lot of opportunities for the kids to explore and learn new things about art, like how the art
can look and how it can also be interactive. As well as exposing her students to new social
environments so they can learn to process the world around them.

Pain Points
● Catherine fears that her students will not be able to understand that some sculptures are
interactive and others are not.

● She is concerned that they may hurt themselves or the art work.

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Katelyn Sunfield | Uninformed Parent
Name: Katelyn Sunfield

Age: 35

Occupation: Mom, nurse

Characteristics: Katelyn wants to explore Pyramid Hill with her child

but is nervous about accessibility options. Katelyn has a low level of
knowledge about autism, having only really begun to look into it
following her child's recent diagnosis. Her familiarity with accessibility
resources is also low, as her job commitments have limited her time to
explore available tools, strategies, or support groups that could assist
her and her child.

Motivations
Katelyn is motivated by a strong desire to deepen her understanding of autism to better support
her child. She aims to foster a stronger emotional connection and improve communication,
creating a supportive and nurturing home environment. Katelyn seeks to utilize strategies such
as social stories to clearly communicate expectations and routines to her child, enhancing daily
interactions and activities.

Pain Points
● Experiences anxiety about the possibility of making mistakes in how she supports her
child.

● Feels overwhelmed by the vast array of information and advice available about ASD,
which adds to her stress.

● Faces challenges in making daily activities and outings accessible and accommodating
for her child's sensory sensitivities and social needs, adding further to her concerns.

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Cheyenne Stelmack | Informed Parent
Name: Cheyenne Stelmack

Age: 39

Occupation: Mom, pediatric psychologist

Characteristics: She has extensive professional and personal

experience with autism, bolstered by her specialized knowledge in the
field. Her familiarity with accessibility resources is high, as she
regularly employs and recommends various tools, resources, and
support networks for autistic individuals and their families.

Motivations
Cheyenne is driven by a strong commitment to support her daughter and other individuals on
the autism spectrum. She aims to seamlessly connect academic research with practical,
real-world applications to enhance the lives of families who support an autistic child.
Additionally, she is dedicated to promoting awareness and inclusivity for individuals on the
autism spectrum across all aspects of society, ensuring they receive the recognition and
integration they deserve.

Pain Points
● Faces the challenge of balancing her demanding professional responsibilities with the
personal demands of raising a child on the autism spectrum.

● Encounters and addresses prevalent misconceptions and stereotypes about autism,

both in her personal interactions and professional circles.

● Navigating the emotional complexities involved in supporting her daughter’s unique

needs while advocating for systemic changes adds another layer of challenge to her
daily life.

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Design Process
The social stories went through several different design iterations throughout the production
process. From our research, we knew that we needed to prioritize readability for the social
stories. This meant adhering to the tenets of:

● large text,
● readable font,
● ample negative space, and
● clear images.

In order to maintain consistency across the seven social story documents, as well as make it
easy for Pyramid Hill to produce more social stories in the future, we decided to produce the
aforementioned pre-formatted template that could be copied for every new document. This
template ended up including the header design, the page numbers, the title and body page
layouts, as well as a style guide which includes general rules for tone, word choice, and
punctuation.

The first thing that we referenced when designing the template was the Pyramid Hill branding
guide.7 From the branding guide, we were able to determine our font and color options. Initially,
we chose to use Pyramid Hill’s primary font, Avenir Next, at size 14 for the body text of the
social stories, but we received feedback from a few reviewers that this configuration was hard to
read, so we switched to Arial font, size 16.

We also referenced the layout of preexisting social stories when creating our design, namely the
layout of the MET’s social story for children visiting with their families.4 In our original draft, we
formatted the images and text to be side-by-side, and we also included multiple sections on the
same page. After looking at the way the MET’s social story was laid out, however, we decided
that our stories would be easier to read, especially if viewed on a phone, if we followed the
MET’s design with the text on the top and the image on the bottom of each section. We also
determined that since we generally had three or four sentences to accompany each image, that
it would be wise to separate each section by page in order to allow space for large images.

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Additionally, our original document design featured both a red header and a red footer, but we
also received feedback that this made each page feel too claustrophobic, so we opted to use
only the red header. Figure 1 below shows a comparison between our initial design and our final
design.

Figure 1: Excerpts of the original social story template (left) and the final template (right).

Writing Process
The writing process when creating the social stories was carefully thought out and planned. We
first had to identify our audience, which were neurodivergent children going to Pyramid Hill, and
we decided that we wanted the social story to be around a 3rd grade reading level.

Within the social stories we prioritized simple word choice and sentence structure. For example,
in the “Enter the Park” social story (Appendix A-3), we originally used the word “merchandise” to
describe the items you can buy at the Visitor Center. We decided this was too complex of a
word for some young children to understand, and so we simplified it to “other things” and “my
item” in the finalized version. We also prioritized the repetition of ideas. An example of this is our
emphasis on advising readers against climbing the sculptures in order to stay safe, which is a
recurring idea throughout the many of the stories.

When writing the social stories, we had to make style and word choices that applied across the
board. We realized that we would have to refer to the adults in the social story as one
generalized word because the kids reading the story could be at the park with a variety of
adults. We decided to use “grown-up” as the word for adults in our social stories, as we found it

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to be a general term that was more approachable to kids than “adult.” We also wanted to
distinguish between when to use “I” and when to use “we” in a sentence. We decided to use “I”
when referring to an activity a child would do themselves (e.g. “I keep my hands in my lap when
riding in the Art Cart”), and “we” when referring to an activity they would do as part of a group
(e.g. “We ride in the Art Cart”). Another issue we stumbled into was an overuse of exclamation
marks. We didn’t want to imbue the text with too much contrived enthusiasm, so we decided to
cut back heavily on our exclamation mark usage.

In order to appeal to our personas Katelyn and Brian, who are adults caring for children on the
autism spectrum, but who are not all that familiar with autism accommodations and accessibility
tools, we also decided to write a short introductory note for the social stories entitled “A Note for
Grown-Ups” (Appendix A-2). This is a one-page introduction which explains what social stories
are and how adults can use them with the children in their care. We figure that Pyramid Hill can
print it out as a part of the park’s physical social stories packet, and also copy the verbiage onto
the Pyramid Hill website to introduce the downloadable PDF versions of the stories.

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Deliverable 2: Website Audit
The second deliverable we were tasked with was a comprehensive audit of Pyramid Hill’s
current website (Appendix B).

Criteria
When we embarked on the website audit process, we consulted Delaney French, marketing and
sales manager for Pyramid Hill. She provided us with a short list of items she wanted us to
particularly note, which included:

● the header/footer design on the mobile website,

● menu navigation
● payment security,
● SEO/analytical data,
● links,
● blog posts, and
● anything else that came to our attention.

We were able to address everything but payment security, as we felt it outside of our expertise.
Otherwise, we addressed the website page by page, bearing in mind the criteria
recommendations Delaney gave us. Anything that did not neatly fit into one of those pages, we
included in a “Miscellaneous” section, which included image alt text, image sizing, and link
representation. Additionally, we included a short section addressing the mobile version of the
website with brief recommendations therein.

Personas
When approaching the website audit, we crafted three personas, which we considered heavily
while compiling our critiques and recommendations.

The first, Miranda, is a stay-at-home mother of three who intends on taking her children to the
park for an adventurous yet educational summer day trip. On the website, she would be looking
for information for first-time visitors, FAQ pages, and rules her children should follow.

The second persona, Marc, is a young event planner organizing a class reunion for a client local
to the Butler County area. He would be using the website to find event rental details, such as
pricing, catering, and information on previously hosted events.

Our third persona, Kyle, is a college student looking to pick up service hours by volunteering at
Pyramid Hill. He would be engaging with the website to find volunteer information and
opportunities relevant to his interests.

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Miranda Drew | Family Visitor
Name: Miranda Drew

Age: 35

Occupation: Stay-at-home mother

Characteristics: Miranda is a tech-competent stay-at-home

mother. She has three children under the age of 11.

Miranda is looking for a varied, educational, outdoor place to take

her children for a daytrip during the summer. She has heard of
Pyramid Hill but knows little about it, so she intends to use the
website to help learn more about the park and plan her trip.

Motivations
Miranda is looking for information on events, pricing, art displays, and a general map of the
park’s layout. She places some degree of significance in art, but is mostly interested in exposing
her children to an educational, recreational environment.

Pain Points
● Searching for a designated FAQ page for first-time visitors.

● Looking to find rules and expectations for children.

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Marc Anderson | Event Planner
Name: Marc Anderson

Age: 26

Occupation: Event planner

Characteristics: Marc is a professional event planner and,

though he may be young, he has an industrious personality and
many successfully-planned events to boast of.

Marc is organizing a class reunion for a client local to the Butler

County area. The reunion would host roughly 100 people and
would be held outdoors. His client is interested in renting out
space at a park to accommodate the event size.

Motivations
Marc is looking for information on event rentals, catering, and pricing for both. He and his client
enjoy nature and the arts; considering these interests, the Park’s location, and the number of
people for this event, Marc is looking to book the reunion at Pyramid Hill. He is aware that
Pyramid Hill allows for large event rentals, and he wishes to take advantage of that to provide
his client with a scenic, artistic setting for their reunion.

Pain Points
● Trying to find examples of past hosted events.

● Navigating to find specific event-related information.

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Kyle Hill | Volunteer
Name: Kyle Hill

Age: 21

Occupation: College Student

Characteristics: Kyle is a part of a fraternity at the

local university and is looking to gain some volunteer
hours for the semester. He really enjoys art and his
current major is Art History. That is why he wants to
volunteer with Pyramid Hill.

Motivations
Kyle wants to volunteer and is really interested in learning more about art work. He is aware of
the different volunteer opportunities that Pyramid Hills has to offer. He is hoping to volunteer at
least once a month to help get his requirements fulfilled.

Pain Points
● Looking for when and where volunteering will happen.

● Doesn’t have a lot of time to spend online.

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Main Areas of Interest
Listed in this section are the major areas of interest our audit focuses on. They are, in order:
“SEO & Analytics,” “Website Layout,” “Miscellaneous,” and “Mobile Website.”

SEO & Analytics

We wanted any analytical data we used to serve as a tool to further inform us on the
performance of Pyramid Hill’s website.

We narrowed our analytical scope down to specifically focus on user behavior within a
one-month period. Using Wix’s built-in analytical tools, we identified data relevant to our goal of
page-by-page analysis, and we used that data, exemplified below in Figure 2, to inform us on
the performance of the current website layout. This data included bounce rates, average
session time, average pages per session, and top navigation flows that users take through the
website. This data all ultimately served to prove both to us and to Pyramid Hill that the current
website layout has issues and that the changes we recommend are formed on something more
substantive than opinion.

Figure 2: User behavior data for pyramidhill.org, via Wix.1

The key takeaways from our analytical research informed us that users are dropping off of the
website after spending very little time with it. With a bounce rate of 53 percent, over half of all
website users are leaving after visiting just one page. A high bounce rate is not necessarily

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indicative of poor user experience, but when considering some of the other metrics of user
behavior at our disposal, this bounce rate seems more indicative of those overarching
navigability issues. Low session times, low average pages in a session of less than two, and an
average of 13 percent of all users being returning users point toward a lack of engagement we
believe improved navigability will remedy.

Website Layout
The primary observation we made about the current website layout was that, despite a strong
visual identity, the Pyramid Hill website is impaired by navigability issues.

To address this, we took a page-by-page look at the website, noting ways we felt navigability
was being impaired and how to remedy that impairment, as well as any errors we noticed. This
included recommendations to reorganize the header navigation menu (shown in Figure 3
below), the footer, font size, image size, spacing/proximity, and rearrangement of certain
drop-down menus.

We advised changing the way the header menu buttons behave. At present, they serve both as
links to unique pages and as headings for their respective drop-down menus. Because of the
nature of the latter component, it’s rather easy to overlook the former and miss those unique
pages entirely. Our suggestion was to incorporate those unique pages into the drop-down menu,
thus making those pages easier to find and more difficult to miss.

Figure 3: Header navigation menu, pyramidhill.org.1

Incorporating footer elements into the header was another major point we addressed, as the
footer contains page links relevant to several header sections and menus. We advised moving
those elements into the header to make those elements more prevalent in the same vein as the
aforementioned unique pages. We especially considered pages relating to volunteer information
and how users like our persona Kyle Hill would likely struggle to find some of the information in
the footer, and how he would have a far easier time accessing all the information he needs if it
were all in the header.

The bulk of our other critiques and recommendations addressed various formatting notes across
different pages, some of which are addressed in the following section.

Miscellaneous
The “Miscellaneous” section of our audit consists of general observations that can be applied to
multiple pages.

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The first subsection of the “Miscellaneous” section of our audit addresses the website’s FAQ
pages. They presently lack uniformity in presentation, and we noted that creating a new page
with copies of all FAQs on the website, all centralized in one designated spot, could make it
easier for users like our personas Miranda Drew and Marc Anderson—users seeking specific
information and answers to questions—to find the information they’re looking for.

We also considered images across all pages. We addressed image sizing, suggesting the
image sizes on pages be reduced, as well as image hover color and image alt text. We noted
the behavior of images when hovering over them with a cursor, how some change color to
indicate they behave as a link—because they do—while others do so despite not behaving as
links. We also noted the “like” feature present on some images as we were unsure what function
that feature was performing. When looking at all of these images, we also noticed a disparity in
the presence of alt text. Because of the number of images on the website, it was not feasible for
us to address each and every image individually for this subsection. We instead opted to call
attention to what we were noticing, which included present and accurate alt text, but also
missing alt text, placeholder alt text, and inaccurate alt text, as exemplified in Figure 4 below.

Figure 4: Ineffective alt text on an image on pyramidhill.org.1

The last component of the “Miscellaneous” section addressed clickable links present across the
website. We noted that some links are represented as buttons and others as underlined text.
We advised using each type of link presentation for different scenarios, and further advised
making the text versions a different, more contrasting color from the rest of the website’s body
text. A button would be best used for situations inviting more commitment of conversion from a
user, such as a purchase or download, and an in-text link would be best used for intersite links.

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Mobile Website
We decided to conduct a smaller audit of the mobile website due to the anticipated nature of
visitors using their mobile devices prior to and during their visits. This was to ensure that users
are able to have the same experience with the website via a laptop or a phone.The main
concerns that were found on the mobile audit were formatting and navigability.

We were able to identify the problems in a similar manner to the website layout by going through
page by page.Throughout the website there were multiple pages that had minor formatting
errors like font sizing and spacing errors. An example of this would be the hours of operation in
the footer; the font is a different size than the rest of the website and is much smaller, making it
harder to read on a mobile device. Simply increasing the font size would allow for an overall
better visual appearance and readability for users.

We also wanted to address the navigation issues users could be facing. Which relates back to
the drop down menus and the correlating tabs. Users using the mobile version might find it hard
to see information on pages and to be redirected back to the home page. Therefore our
recommendation would be to reformat the drop down menus to ensure better navigation.

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Conclusion
Pyramid Hill Sculpture Park and Museum’s mission is to bring people to art in nature. Our
overall goal with the deliverables has been to enhance the inclusivity and accessibility of
Pyramid Hill’s site and website. We are happy to be able to contribute to their mission by making
the park more accessible to autistic people and other people who may benefit from social
stories. As well as providing a website audit that will help to create a seamless experience for
website users.

The website audit and recommendations we made were geared towards simplifying the average
user’s online navigation experience. This is to ensure that every website user and potential
visitor has easy access to Pyramid Hill’s essential information, therefore increasing visitor
engagement and their satisfaction with the website.

We hope that our contributions with the social stories and website audit will be valuable assets
to Pyramid Hill and the overall goal of creating a welcoming, accessible environment for all
visitors. These deliverables should help enhance a more inclusive and accessible experience at
Pyramid Hill.

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References
1. Pyramid Hill Sculpture Park & Museum. https://www.pyramidhill.org/. Accessed April 20,
2024.

2. “Task Analysis in Applied Behavior Analysis Therapy: Strategies and Examples,” Regis
College. Published June 30, 2023. https://online.regiscollege.edu/blog/task-analysis/.
Accessed April 20, 2024.

3. “Social Narrative,” Sensory Resources Guide For Museums, NYU Ability Project.
https://wp.nyu.edu/sensory_resources_guide_for_museums/social-narrative/. Accessed
April 20, 2024.

4. “Social Narrative: Independent Family Visit to The Metropolitan Museum of Art for
Children on the Autism Spectrum,” Resources for Visitors on the Autism Spectrum, The
Metropolitan Museum of Art.
https://www.metmuseum.org/-/media/files/events/programs/progs-for-visitors-with-disabili
ties/social-narrative-children.pdf. Accessed April 20, 2024.

5. “Getting Around the Cincinnati Art Museum,” Accessibility Accommodations, Cincinnati

Art Museum.
https://www.cincinnatiartmuseum.org/media/j0xkskh1/20200805_20_0115_cam_access_
social_narrative_gettingaround_d01_v01_reduced.pdf. Accessed April 20, 2024.

6. “Resources for Visitors on the Autism Spectrum,” The Metropolitan Museum of Art.
https://www.metmuseum.org/events/programs/access/visitors-with-developmental-and-le
arning-disabilities/for-visitors-with-autism-spectrum-disorders. Accessed April 20, 2024.

7. “Branding Guidelines,” Pyramid Hill Sculpture Park & Museum.

Branding.Guidelines.pdf . Accessed April 20, 2024.

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Appendices
Appendices A and B, in a Google Drive folder, are linked below.

Appendices | Pyramid Hill Capstone Deliverables

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