Alhambra Unified School District Website Redesign Project
Overview
The Alhambra Unified School District’s website serves staff, students, and parents associated with the district’s schools by providing department information, event updates, and more. The goal of this redesign project is to improve the overall user experience by streamlining processes for completing these tasks.
Project Type
Full website redesign
My Role
UX Designer
Responsibilities
Conduct user research, design wireframes and prototypes, implement live product redesign, and evaluate usability of designs
Duration
4 months (ongoing)
Problem Statement
Due to a lack of organization, information, and essential features, staff, students and parents regularly face difficulty engaging tasks they set out to complete when using the district’s website. An overhaul of the website’s information architecture and page layouts is needed so that users no longer encounter roadblocks when using the product.
Research Phase
Research Snapshot
User surveys, website analytics, and competitive audits were studied in order to determine potential areas for improvement.
Select Data From Survey and Analytics
Survey and Google Analytics information were consulted to determine high priority opportunities for improvement, such as designing for desktop over mobile platforms first
Information regarding user demographics and website traffic was also used to determine which pages to target for initial redesign.
Competitive Audit Feature Considerations
Competitive audits with other school district websites revealed additional features that could be implemented into the redesign project, including accessibility features and integrated multiple la
Deliverables
Affinity Diagram
Next, affinity diagrams and user personas were created as research-based deliverables.
Research-based Key Findings
Reinvent the website’s information architecture so users can more easily locate important information and complete tasks.
Adjust the website’s color palette to give a more modern feel.
Reorganize page layouts to be less cluttered and more user-friendly.
Display commonly sought after links and information more prominently.
User Personas
Finally, key findings were derived from analysis of these research deliverables to provide actionable steps for improvement.
Ideation and Design Phase
Ideation Methods
Multiple ideation methods were implemented including crazy eights, mind mapping, and storyboarding. Then, low-fidelity paper wireframes were sketched.
Select Paper Wireframes
Next, low-fidelity digital wireframes were designed in Figma, then converted into high-fidelity mockups and prototypes.
Crazy Eights Ideation Exercise
Example of Mind Mapping
Wireframing and Prototyping
Addressing Research-based Key Findings
Next Steps and Takeaways
Next Steps
Conducting usability tests and further methods of research to determine ability of new designs to meet user needs and reiterating designs based on findings
Designing a mobile application to better serve users who access the product from their smartphones.
Takeaways
What Worked
Successful project management and ability to meet client timeline.
Remaining flexible in designing while working with client’s existing contract with website building company.
Learned the real-world advantages to working as a solo designer (e.g. flexibility in design decisions and prioritizing certain tasks).
Successful self-teaching of advanced features in Figma to improve workflow.
Committing to a growth-mindset in order to ensure the product evolves with industry standards.
What Could Be Improved
Identifying methods to gain continuous design feedback in a solo freelance project setting (solutions: utilizing community tools such as online mentoring and professional social networking sites to solicit feedback).
Identifying ways to overcome technical issues as they arise in a solo freelance project setting (solutions: identifying community courses and tutorials to continue improving technical skills in Figma).
Decreasing frequency of pauses in project progress as a result of various stakeholder schedules (solution: identifying all stakeholder contact and scheduling information at start of project, identifying which stakeholders are involved within each project milestone).