Timeline: June - September 2022
UX Researcher: Karen Nieto
UX Designer: Esther Liu
Web Builders: Don Le & Jessica Liu
Mentors: Heidi Hernandez, Shaira Tuazon, & Bart Van de Vel
Due to personal circumstances, our visual designer, Hanyi Wang, was unable to complete the project but contributed to our early logo iterations and stylistic choices.
<aside> <img src="/icons/friends_pink.svg" alt="/icons/friends_pink.svg" width="40px" /> While we all spearheaded our assigned roles, the four of us closely worked together to make design decisions, conduct usability tests and analyses, and create both desktop and mobile prototypes.
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Girls Rising is a non-profit organization in San Diego that provides mentorship and career readiness support to girls and young women. Their services include a Mentorship Program for girls ages 8-17, focusing on personal development and mentorship, and a Women Emerging Program for young women ages 18-24, focusing on career growth. Over the last ten years, Girls Rising has served over 400 historically underserved young women.
<aside> <img src="/icons/search_pink.svg" alt="/icons/search_pink.svg" width="40px" /> How might we improve website navigation, make site content more digestible, and revamp Girls Rising’s branding to make the site more appealing to potential donors, mentors, and mentee recommenders?
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We conducted 7 interviews and distributed a survey to 25 people to probe what the user experience was like. We created affinity diagrams to make it easier to identify trends in responses.
All 7 interviewees ****and 9 out of 25 survey respondents ****found that the navigation bar was too disorganized, particularly because the majority of the pages were grouped under a “More” tab
4 out of 7 interviewees and 5 out of 25 survey respondents expressed disapproval of the color scheme, stating that it looked dull, corporate, and off-brand
4 out of 7 interviewees appreciated the images across the site, noting that it helped them “quickly know what it’s about”
4 out of 7 interviewees and 4 out of 25 survey respondents were overwhelmed by the large blocks of text on the site
4 out of 7 interviewees stated that they would have liked to see images of the Girls Rising team members
We compared features across competitors who share a common goal of empowering and uplifting girls and young women. This helped us recognize areas for improvement and gain inspiration from what other nonprofits have done. We created a slide deck analyzing how each website compares in more detail.
🌟 Create a logo for Girls Rising that resonates with their audience
🌟 Communicate who Girls Rising is at the top of the homepage
🌟 Develop a strong visual identity by creating a color palette and visuals unique to Girls Rising
🌟 Organize the navigation bar by grouping together similar pages
🌟 Have clear and visible call-to-action buttons across the site
🌟 Include written testimonials and links to social media