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Poseidon Project
Watching Users Navigate Information They Didn't Ask For
The Poseidon Project is content-heavy and trying to do something genuinely difficult: make complex, politically charged environmental research accessible to a general audience that didn't seek it out. The interface needed to guide users through dense information without making them feel lectured. In practice, the navigation structure was actively working against that goal — written for subject-matter experts, tested by the people who built it.
Conducted moderated usability testing with five participants across different levels of environmental awareness, using think-aloud protocol and task-based evaluation. Sessions were recorded and analyzed to identify friction patterns across navigation, labeling, content hierarchy, and information accessibility. Findings were categorized by severity and frequency to create a prioritized recommendation set.
- Every friction point mapped to a specific interface decision with a proposed resolution
- Navigation labels rewritten using language drawn directly from participant sessions
- Top three structural changes identified that would resolve the majority of observed task failures
- Prioritized recommendation report delivered with severity scoring and implementation guidance
The people who built the thing can't see what's broken
This is the core argument for user testing, and it never gets less true. You're too close to your own decisions to see the gaps. The moment a real user says 'wait, where do I go from here?' — that's more valuable than any internal review process could produce. Watch people use your thing. Do it early, do it often, and don't moderate toward the answers you want.