Alliance of the Great Lakes
— An evaluation and re-design of the desktop and mobile web browser for an NGO group
Project Overview
NGOs want to cater to a large audience, to share their hard work and educational information so others will care about the issues they are trying to solve as well.
Keeping in mind the goals of the Alliane of the Great Lakes and it’s members needs, my group and I reevaluated the current website, conducted research and came up with a redesign to better fit the NGO’s and user’s goals. The final product resulted in re-designs for desktop and mobile screens.
Details
Role: UX Designer / UX Researcher / Content Designer
Duration: 10 weeks
Tools: Balsamiq / Qualtrics / Xtensio
*My first ever UX project through the User Centered Design course in Brandeis University UCD Master’s Program
In this hypothetical scenario, my team’s client the Alliance of the Great Lakes has asked us to evaluate the current state of their website and perform a re-design to modernize, boost engagement and display their information clearly to current and potential members. First, we identified several project goals and measurable business goals as a team.
The Problem
To increase traffic and ease usability on the site:
Increase the use of visuals (photos and videos)
Rearrange the menu pages and their interiors to declutter information and lead users right where they want to go
Active language throughout site, directing users to take action and create a sense of urgency of the issues
Engaging social media more as a way to get information out, get people involved and set reminders for events and actions happening
Project Goals
Measurable outcomes to drive engagement during the pandemic:
Obtain a 20% increase in donations throughout the year 2021, comparing the data of donations of previous years to after 2021.
Obtain at least a 25% increase in email subscribers and social media followers throughout the year 2021, comparing previous subscriber and follower engagement with 2021.
Increase event attendance through Covid-19 with virtual events and social media challenges, etc., surveyed through attendees and participants
Increase community engagement by hosting scheduled clean-ups in designated areas each month, tracked through sign-up lists of attendees
Business Goals
— My Process
Site Heuristic Evaluation
Competitor Site Analysis
Research
Target Audience
Persona Development
Define
Navigation Proposal
Site Map
Ideate
Lo-Fi Wireframes
Prototype
Test
Usability Testing
Iterate
Lo-Fi Desktop + Mobile Wireframes
— Research
Each member of the team analyzed the current website {https://greatlakes.org} for certain features and determine what aspects it already did well in and what we should focus on improving. You can check out the full analysis here.
Site Heuristic Evaluation
Areas needing most improvement include…
01
Logo Placement
On the site and throughout the various other pages
02
Site Name Placement
Similar to logo placement, on the site and throughout the various other pages
03
Page Layouts
The organization of the navigation, menus and content
04
Audience Centered Content
Language and content to target the various audiences of the Alliance
Each team member then analyzed a peer or competitor environmental NGO website to apply or adapt features and organizational techniques that were successful to our own design. We analyzed:
Competitor Site Analysis
Overall, these competitors had better…
01
Branding & Visual Design
With playful color schemes and consistent logo and site name placement
02
Content Specific Language
Page titles and content written to fit target user needs
03
Page Layouts
The organization of the navigation and content was clearer than the Alliance
Due to project and time constraints, here are other research methods we thought to implement:
Survey {already created in Qualtrics} to send out to current users of the website. Sent through their email subscription list, posted on their website and available on their social media platforms. A prize drawing or raffle would be used to incentivize user participation.
User Interviews of current Alliance members, volunteers, donors and those with the potential to work with the Alliance.
Site Traffic Analysis on the current website to gather data on use.
First-Click Testing on the current website to understand current user flow accomplishing tasks.
Other Research Methods
— Define
As a team we identified four main target audiences based on the information from the current website:
Target Audience & Persona Development
👧
🤵♀️
The Potential Volunteer
The Potential Donor
👸
🕵️♀️
The Political Activist
The Current Donor
Each team member then became an expert on one target audience. Mine was the Potential Volunteer, where I then developed the persona, Katie.
— The Problems
Focusing on our target audiences and our analyses of the current website along with competitors, the main problems the team identified were:
The amount of information and the way the website is currently organized is hard for potential and current members to find what they need.
01
Engagement for the Alliance will decrease because of the occurring pandemic.
02
— Ideate
As a team we reorganized the navigation and pages of the current website in a clearer manner.
Navigation Proposal
The site map dives into the 5 main pages and their interior headers and links.
Site Map
In addition to the Navigation Proposal and Site Map, the team came up with various ideas and notes for improvements to overall site organization and efficiency.
Removal of the website’s ‘Standpoint Series’
Show donation transparency
‘Watermarks Newsletter’ under the main Newsletter
Users should get back to the Homepage from anywhere on the site
‘Our Impact’ page unclear
Team Brainstorming
— Prototype
As a team, we created a first round of wireframes of the Homepage and individually chose an interior page to design on our own. I worked on the ‘Getting Involved’ site page.
Lo-Fi Wireframes
Homepage
‘Getting Involved’
— Test
I tested my desktop wireframes (Homepage and Getting Involved) on one user. View my Test Plan
Out of 6 tasks to complete, my user …
Key Takeaways
Some alterations to navigation language in the Homepage
Confusing to determine what category they fit into based on the sub-headers provided under ‘Getting Involved’
More prominent direct links or buttons that show people how they can get involved right now -- in addition to more extensive information and other ways to get involved that were not direct actions
Take a look at my complete Test Results
Passed
Failed
— Iterate
Incorporating the user feedback from the usability test, I did a second iteration of wireframes for the desktop pages.
View the desktop wireframes larger here
Desktop Wireframes
Home
‘Getting Involved’
In addition to desktop wireframes, I created mobile wireframes for the website as well.
View the mobile wireframes larger here
Mobile Wireframes
Home
Menu
‘Getting Involved’
— Next Steps
Because the team did not work directly with Alliance of the Great Lakes as the client, we could only speculate certain aspects of the design. In collaboration with the client I would like to:
Access current website user data
Conduct user testing with the target audiences to back up design decisions before taking to the client for any final approvals
Steps with Client
Many regarding current user data — How many members exist currently? What is website traffic data like? What are their donation stats? etc.
What is the engagement like during a pandemic?
How do current users interact with the redesign?
Do our re-designs in fact meet our project and business goals?
Unanswered Questions
— Reflection
Completing this within a 10-week course provided some challenges when it came to testing users and iterating my design. Being able to iterate over again would ensure that our team is making changes to the current website that are directly in line with user wants, needs and goals.
Another major challenge was not working directly with the client. I did not have access to talk to the Alliance directly to get data on their outreach practices, yearly donations and volunteer engagement. I made my best guess through the website, social media pages and with the information I have available to imagine viable goals.
Challenges
Due to the time constraints of the class, I would have liked to conduct a bit more initial research, hold more than one user testing session and test the designs on real Alliance users. As stated in the beginning, I created a survey that was not sent out to users and I chose some other research methods to look into before jumping into designing.
I would have also liked to draw up a user map or user journey to describe various aspects of the product and user flows. One struggle that my group and I made was trying to imagine what our target users would want. This stemmed from not being able defining our users enough. This would have been beneficial to the research and design process so I could test the right users, ask the right questions and cater to their wants and needs. It would also help to create a streamlined understanding of the different types of users across the team and stakeholders so everyone could communicate with the same base knowledge of our users and product.
Improvements
