Their website is outdated and not engaging, not intuitive, and the organization's intention is unclear. Also, simplify the process for inquiring or learning more about their speakers and programs. This project will save SpeakOut $11,946, allowing them to subsidize community organizations' costs with limited funding to gain access to their network, programs, speakers, and other resources.
We referred to the previous UX research personas to guide us in creating the wireframes and the following UI designs of the website. These were our guiding light moving forward.
As one of the first deliverables, I created a sitemap of what I thought should be the website architecture. I reviewed this with the Managing Director (MD).
For the best experience, I chose an adaptive layout method for this project. The content for pages like the speakers' profile page was very extensive and needed to be treated in a different way than the Large format view. The navigation becomes move streamlined with menu options in the medium widths. At a small breakpoint, we remove 90% of menu options but keep the search and menu functions prominent. Searching for a speaker is still the primary activity for a visitor. Search results will first present speakers, followed by other sections of the site.
In our first homepage draft, I tried to keep the sections to a bare minimum. After showing the MD this draft, we worked on some updates. Featuring the speakers was more important than the talks. So we swapped sections. The section blog posts were artifacts of the current website. And did not need to be carried over to the new one.
We needed to add a section for selling merchandise—a key source of revenue for this organization. The newsletter sign-up process could be quicker if we ask for only an email address first. These updates are reflected in the new wireframe for the homepage.
I took the design back and experimented because I did not feel that the first draft captured the organization's mission. This draft feels more energetic. It brings out the color and diversity of the speakers.
A mixture of all the Ninja Turtles 🐢 into one. Suffering from an addiction to coffee, cookies and zombies 🧟. Team player, a negotiator with developers, product owners and stakeholders.
