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IA RESTRUCTURE
The United Way of Greater Lafayette website works to bring people, organizations and resources together to create the conditions necessary for success for people in Greater Lafayette
CONTEXT AND OVERVIEW
United Way is a social impact organization dedicated to fighting for the education, financial stability, health and basic needs of every person in our community.
This project piece encapsulates my junior year internship, where I worked to transition the United Way website from one platform to another, condensing copy, updating graphics and restructuring the information architecture. While also taking and supplying photos for press releases and fundraiser campaign.
ClienT
United Way of Greater Lafayette
Lafayette, Indiana
DURATION
Aug - Dec 2017
Skills
User Testing, Wireframing, Information Architecture, User Research
FOLKS INVOLVED
Mentor: ​Ebony M. Barrett-Kennedy
THE OPPORTUNITY
Problem Statement: United Way of Greater Lafayette (UW of GL) had identified that they needed a new and updated website to manage the immense amount of information they needed to regularly communicate to those in the community.
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Opportunity: United Way utilizes OneEach Technologies to create and manage their website. This website platform would allow them to switch website formats overnight. With this switch though not everything would be one to one and they would need to manage, shift and re-organize content, copy and graphics.
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As the UX/UI Intern, I aimed to...​
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Understand the users, their needs and their goals
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Assist UW of GL with all other design needs
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Intended Outcomes
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Facilitated website format switch
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Condense copy and update graphics across all pages
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Restructure Information Architecture to meet website navigation priorities
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RESEARCH& Evaluation
There were many format options available to the UW of GL on the OneEach website platform. In order to choose the format that would be best for UW of GL it was important to consider many different factors.
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How UW of GL fit into the entire United Way organization, and with other chapters across the country
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How UW of GL might stand out and reach out to their unique community in the best way possible
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UW of GL's goals, motives, and most crucial moments in the community
I presented the top 3 website format options I believed would lead to the best results, and leaders at UW of GL chose 1 format from those presented options. A date to have all content switched overnight was determined and additional “reach” features were determined - twitter feed, blog post feed, and calendar/event notification feed.
Copy condensation
As the switch date rapidly approached, it was my responsibility to get information pared down in the best ways possible. There were many duplicate, irrelevant and out of date pages that could be combined or deleted to create a better overall experience. On other pages, there were misleading buttons or pictures that appeared clickable and pages or forms that needed to be hidden throughout the year, until the time they were needed.
The Community Commitment to Education page below is one example of many pages rework that was, that lead to better overall understanding and information consumption.
Previous Implementation
Re-designed Content Implementation
The Format Switch
Literally overnight, the entire website had been switched over and our design format choices implemented thanks to OneEach.
While the interface looked better and all duplicate pages had been eliminated (manually pre-format switch), the site now had broken page links, still several pages with the redundant information and where content was not easily consumable, and outdated graphics.
Copy changes were made within the online editor working in the HTML and CSS on each page.
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One example of a graphics/content update is the the "Union Counseling" feature shown below, that when re-designed, helped ease understanding and lead to increased attendance rates.
Previous Implementation
Re-designed Content Implementation
This portion of the redesign taught me a great deal about patience and working with a variety of technologies and an awareness of outside companies, partners and employees and their respective roles.
Asset creation
After condensing copy, I worked on asset recreation and incorporation. Some asset creation happened prior to the switch, because of known color palette, but some asset was paused until after the format switch creation to ensure brand standard compliance.
Buttons were re-created to better fit the new “image” of the website and graphics were made to show progress on the Victory Campaign.
Previous Implementation
Re-designed Content Implementation
I had the opportunity to take photos used in press releases and on the website. Photos were included on banners of the new site to better feature the wonderful work and people behind United Way of Greater Lafayette. Below you can see a few of photos I took from the 2017 Victory Campaign Press Release.
