Reimagining Digital Collection Management for a Broader Audience
OCLC's CONTENTdm is an established digital collection management platform used by libraries, museums, and cultural institutions to preserve, organize, and publish digital collections. The platform supports a large and diverse institutional ecosystem worldwide.
Source: OCLC, CONTENTdm by the Numbers. Historical product-scale figures.
Despite its scale, CONTENTdm's administrative workflows remained complex, requiring specialized knowledge to manage metadata, ingest digital assets, and maintain collections.
As UX Lead, I led the experience strategy and proposed redesign, working with Product Management, Engineering, QA, and Customer Success to simplify core workflows and create a more intuitive, task-oriented experience.
The opportunity went beyond modernizing the interface. It was about reducing operational complexity, improving efficiency, and making CONTENTdm accessible to a broader market.
Powerful Capabilities. Complex Workflows.
CONTENTdm's legacy administrative experience made everyday collection management unnecessarily difficult. Users navigated dense metadata fields, disconnected workflows, and technical configurations to complete routine tasks.
Three key problems:
Complex metadata: Repetitive editing and technical configurations slowed cataloging.
Fragmented workflows: Managing and publishing collections required too many steps across different tools.
Barriers to adoption: Specialized knowledge made the platform difficult for smaller institutions and less experienced users.
The challenge: Simplify the experience without sacrificing the advanced capabilities institutions depended on.
Designing Around the Work, Not the System
I led the experience strategy to simplify CONTENTdm's complex administrative workflows, bringing Product, Engineering, QA, and business stakeholders together to rethink how users manage digital collections.
Three design priorities:
Simplify metadata management: Reduce repetitive steps through clearer field structures and guided interactions.
Unify collection workflows: Create a task-oriented workspace with easier navigation, quick actions, and visibility into unfinished work.
Streamline digital publishing: Make exhibition creation more intuitive, from organizing content to previewing and publishing.
I translated research and workshop findings into information architecture, user journeys, interactive prototypes, and a proposed redesign that balanced usability, technical feasibility, and business goals.
Improving Efficiency and Enabling Market Expansion
The proposed redesign focused on reducing administrative complexity, improving collection management, and making CONTENTdm more accessible to a broader market.
40% reduction in cataloging effort
Reported efficiency improvement associated with simplified metadata and collection management workflows.
$8M → $22M projected annual revenue opportunity
Business growth target supported by a strategy to expand CONTENTdm beyond traditional academic libraries.
Beyond the Interface
Simpler workflows: Proposed more intuitive metadata, ingestion, and collection management experiences.
Broader accessibility: Designed for both experienced archivists and institutions with fewer technical resources.
Strategic alignment: Connected customer needs, technical feasibility, and business growth through cross-functional collaboration.
The work established a proposed experience direction for modernizing CONTENTdm while preserving the advanced capabilities institutions relied on.
