Michele L'Heureux
UX Designer
Objective
The goal of the project was to evaluate the dual organizations' website to identify where improvements could be made to better serve their business goals, namely, to:
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boost visitation to the museum and monument.
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increase facility rentals.
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generate more donations.
The team was charged with redesigning the site's information architecture and creating mobile and desktop wireframes for two separate user flows.
The existing home page suffered from a lack of visual interest and a main navigation that is poorly organized and offers too many choices. We created user flow diagrams to document revised paths that were more intuitive and efficient for users.
Results
As a team, we:
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documented the site's current architecture in Excel.
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identified areas of weakness, particularly involving poor navigation.
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brainstormed ideas for improving the navigation and design.
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created user flow diagrams for two key user paths.
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sketched rough wireframes by hand.
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divided up the design work by website sections.
Individually, we:
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designed various pages of the site, coming together to offer feedback, ask questions, and provide tool tips, as needed.
My Role
After initial brainstorming and planning, we broke the design into different components, and team members worked individually on wireframes and prototypes in Figma. I was one of two team members to present our redesigned site map to the group.
Challenges
Given tight time constraints, the team had to work quickly and efficiently. Team challenges included:
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little time for getting to know each others' styles and skillsets - had to hit the ground running and learn
along the way.
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team members were each familiar with different design and prototyping tools, so two of us (including myself) were new to Figma tool and had to learn on the fly.
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the team did not gel naturally, but everyone was respectful and hard-working, and we were able push past any awkwardness and far exceed the requirements of the project.
Our redesign relied on a simplified architecture with fewer and more intuitive choices. It also brings the image front and center, along with key calls to action.
Process
The team redesigned the site's architecture to simplify choices and improve navigation by:
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condensing categories.
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rewriting and changing the order of labels.
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tightening up the footer.
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designing clear paths for visitors to find information, check out the events calendar, and purchase tickets.
The team worked so efficiently that we were able to produce a clickable prototype of the redesigned site for desktop and mobile, even though the requirements specified wireframes only. Wireframes were created using Figma, then imported into InVision to create the prototypes.
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Existing mobile site (far left) provides no indication of what the site is and no clear calls to action. Redesign (below right) offers immediate clues to the purpose of the site and places key calls to action front and center.