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No More Boring User Interface!

Journal of Nonprofit Innovation webpage. WikiCharities is a trusted global community for the nonprofit sector, its mission is to provide an online platform where quality charities are searchable by location and topic and show accountability through nonprofit validation. However, this nonprofit is only about 2 years old, they needed more people to know about their website. I was honored to be on the design and development team to enhance the user interface and usability of the website.

Before we start touching anything, we need to get to know more about our client and its users. We learned that the users of the website are scholars, librarians, students, researchers, non-profit organizations, and others who use or submit academic journals. 

Goals

As a newly established Journal, JoNI sought to cultivate a sophisticated site to formally establish itself as a credible and esteemed scholarly publication platform.

Original Design

Problems/Needs

The original website presents several areas of concern that need attention for enhanced user experience and credibility:
 

• Lack of Academic Journal Aesthetics
• Unclear purpose

• Weak branding
• Cluttered Single-Page Layout
• Inconspicuous Navigation Bar

• Over-sized elements

oldVersion.png

How might we improve?

To improve the website, we should focus on creating a clear purpose, using human-readable terms, featuring/latest journals, implementing a separate journal page, incorporating user reviews, adding social media links, and enhancing the overall UI & UX. These enhancements will result in a more user-friendly and engaging platform for our audience.

Wireframe

There are 3 members in the team, each member created our own design for the client to pick between. This is what I came up with after researching what other professional journal sites look like. The client was attracted to the above-the-fold area of my design because it's unlike the traditional look with the hero image all the way across the webpage, so she picked my design.

Short-cut tiles

(Call to action)

4 Featured journals

Above the fold

Wireframe.png

4 Featured Blog posts

User Revviews

Organized and clean

Surface Comp

SurfaceComp.png
SurfaceComp copy.png

Pattern Library

Color Palette

Fonts


H1 - Roboto 34px Bold
H2 - Roboto 24px Bold
H3 - Roboto 16px
Medium

Body - Arial 14px Regular

Icons

journals.png
blog.png
about.png

Prototype

Our client prefers to use Google Sites to build the website since it is free! It's a great option for a newly established nonprofit organization. So we started building the website using Google Sites. It is an awesome tool even though it does not have all the fancy functions we wanted, but hey! It's free! So I'm not complaining.

Testing

We found some librarians, and students from different backgrounds to do the usability test on the new website. We found that we have successfully improved the user interface and user experience of the website because they were able to find what they need within seconds.

screencapture-journalofnonprofitinnovation-org-2023-04-29-17_23_31 (1).png
screencapture-journalofnonprofitinnovation-org-2023-04-29-17_23_31 (1).png

Contribution

In this design and development team, I wore two hats: team leader and team player. As the leader, my main gig was setting goals and making sure we stayed on track. I laid out what we needed to accomplish and kept everyone in check. As a team member, I got my hands dirty right from the start. I jumped into user research, working closely with my teammates. We divided the tasks right down the middle and dove into gathering insights from users.

Conclusion

Before starting this team project, I was filled with excitement. I had been looking forward to group projects and the opportunity to work with a real company. Interacting with people and gaining firsthand experience in client collaboration was something I genuinely enjoyed. As we progressed through the project, my feelings remained positive. I was happy with our work and the direction we were heading in. When we finally completed the project, I felt a great sense of satisfaction. I believed that our team had successfully met the company's expectations, and that made me even happier with the overall project. It was a fulfilling experience from beginning to end.

I learned the importance of user research and how it informs the design process. Conducting thorough research helped us understand user needs, preferences, and pain points, which directly influenced our design decisions.

 LET'S GET IN TOUCH

I'd love to hear from you

385-312-3233

© 2023 designed by Macy Lau.

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