.Hi! :) I am Maryam
A UX designer with ten years of experience in visual art
.Hi! :) I am Maryam
A UX designer with ten years of experience in visual art
.Hi! :) I am Maryam
A UX designer with ten years of experience in visual art
The Africa In Me
Website redesign that helps users to understand the mission of the organization effectively and attracts more users.
Challenge
The users could not find the information about the organization and its mission so they could not trust to donate.
Deliverable
Interview, Survey, Heuristic evaluation, Competitive analysis, Sketches, UI, Prototype
Role
Team leader, User researcher, Interaction designer ( team of 5 designers )
Duration
Three weeks
Outcome
40% increase in the user's engagement
OVERVIEW
AFIM is a nonprofit organization established by an inspiring woman who is originally from Africa. The organization provides food and job security for the less privileged families in 4 counties in Africa. As one of the volunteer family, my ambition was to help AFIM grow and raise more users.
Having the goal, I interviewed people who donate online and I discovered the current homepage was not effective and efficient enough in showing the mission and goals of the organization. So I took initiative and suggested redesigning the website for our first anniversary. This is where my team and I started the process.
As one of the volunteers' family, my ambition was to have an impact and better user experience of AFIM.
PROCESS
DISCOVER
DEFINE
Interview
Usability test
Competitive analysis
Problem & Solution
Card sorting
Sitemap
IDEATION
Sketches
Wireframe
Iteration
DELIVER
Prototype
Usability test
DISCOVER
Usability Test & Interview
To learn more about the users and uncover their pain points, we conducted a usability test with ten users on the current website. Observing the users during the test, and talking with them after finishing the requested task, we find:
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The inconsistency and unprofessional design discourage the users
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The homepage is lacking enough information about the organization and the donation process
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The unclear information confuses the users about where and how the money used
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The confusion consequently stops them from trusting the organization
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The users have to spend a long time applying for the volunteer opportunities
What users revealed during the interview
Competitive Analysis
For the next step, doing a thorough observation of the 10 similar websites, we summarized the results:
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The common humanized language used in the navbar
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Using phrases "Who We Are" and "What We Do" to talk about the mission of the organization
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The importance of having a volunteer button on the homepage
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The need for having a search bar on the global bar
DEFINE
Solution
The team analyzed the result of the two research and we made a list of goals that we decided to focus on:
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Redesigning the homepage and giving more information about the organization to make it trustworthy
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Improving information architecture to make the navigation smoother
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Providing information about the founder (to encourage the users)
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Designing a friendly way of joining as a volunteer
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Adding a blog to make the site discoverable
Card Sorting
During the research, I found that the users have trouble navigating the website. Therefore my team and I worked on architecture information and made the sitemap. My goal was to help the user find the information smoothly. I changed the words "Join Us" to "Get Involved" and "About Us" to "Who We Are" to use more humanized and clear language.
BEFORE CARD SORTING
AFTER CARD SORTING
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IDEATION
Sketch
Moving forward, we prepared different sketches and worked through them to reach the final version. During the process, we continued reviewing the users' paint points and the organization’s mission to make sure the final design is creating a better user experience.
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Sample of the first sketch our team made
DELIVER
Wireframe
Home Page: the sections that speak about the AFIM mission.
Volunteer Page: The users can apply for volunteer opportunities with a short process on one page.
The impact
Before and after the redesign, I conducted a usability test with ten users. As shown below, the time of applying as a volunteer was significantly reduced. 10 out of the ten participants could find easily what they looking for and 8 of them indicated they are happy with the website's new appearance.
As aresult of the redesign, in about 4 months we had a 40% increase in the user's engagement.
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BEFORE
AFTER
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Note: This is a real project I did while working in the organization. However, I have omitted or blurred confidential information/ images in this case study to comply with my non-disclosure agreement. The information presented here is my own and does not necessarily reflect the views of the organization.
What I Learned
Unlashing ideas for finding solutions
It was the first time in my work that I unleashed my imagination for finding a solution. Before jumping to the design part, I did immerse research about my users. It was important to learn what matters for them and what keeps them there. The result of the research the work showed how much it is important to put the users in the center. We always should make something that solves their real problem not what we assume about them.
Leadership opportunity
Working in a nonprofit team, gave me opportunities to work on the skills we need in design as a collaboration career. I took one step further as a leader of a team of two people. It was challenging and I experienced hard moments at first but eventually, I learned how to find the capacity of every individual and focus on what we can do as a team rather than pointing out our weaknesses.