HELP by AMG Website Redesign
Nonprofit Organization, User-Centric Navigation, Cognitive Load Optimization, Empathetic Design
My role
UX researcher
UI designer
Duration
3 months
Tool
Zoom
Figma
Google Workspace
Canva
Type
Team project
Story with HELP by AMG
Through Northeastern university, my team and I had the pleasure of meeting Antonio, a passionate and committed man who serves as the Executive Director of HELP by AMG. Through the conversation with Antonio, we learned about the mission and vision of "HELP by AMG", as well as the challenges they face and what they have achieved.
We would love to bring our expertise to work with HELP by AMG to help at-risk and homeless youth. Providing them with essential daily necessities and providing them with access to other services and opportunities to improve their lives and well-being. We provided HELP by AMG with a website redesign to help the organization achieve its goals of attracting more volunteers and donors.
User Interview
As we embarked on a comprehensive redesign of the HELP by AMG website, the team adhered to a set of core principles with the clear goal of enhancing volunteer and donor engagement by optimizing the user experience. Based on this goal, I propose an in-depth study of human perception, memory, reasoning, and decision-making processes to gain a deep understanding of the working mechanism of the human mind and its practical application in interface design. The purpose of this is to reduce the cognitive load on users when using our website, making their browsing process more easy and natural.
Through joint research and analysis as a team, we carefully planned the redesign of the website. Our first priority was to ensure that the new design not only faithfully reflected the HELP by AMG brand image, but also more effectively communicated the organization’s mission and successfully captured users’ attention. To this end, we paid special attention to the overall layout of the website, including the design of the navigation bar, footer and key pages, aiming to simplify the user's operation process by improving navigation efficiency and optimizing user experience. We hope these improvements will make it easier for users to find the information they need when visiting the site, thereby reducing their cognitive load.
Within the team, I was specifically responsible for the redesign of the navigation bar and footer. In order to gain a deeper understanding of our target user groups, I personally conducted face-to-face interviews with them. These interviews not only allowed me to hear directly from users’ opinions and suggestions, but also allowed me to work with them on optimizing website navigation through methods such as card sorting. This process greatly helped me understand the specific needs and expectations of my target users for the navigation bar and footer.
Start Design
In the early stages of the design process, I conducted an in-depth analysis of the requirements presented by Antonio and his team and the valuable feedback we collected from our target users. Based on this information, I designed a series of navigation bar and footer solutions that were both diverse and specific, which not only reflected the core values of "HELP by AMG" but also took into account the intuitiveness and usability of the user interface. These solutions are designed to provide Antonio and his team with a visual range of options to make the decision-making process more efficient and clear.
For mobile users, I also developed special layout designs, which fully considered the navigation habits and interaction methods of mobile users. My goal is to ensure that the HELP by AMG website provides a consistent user experience regardless of the device on which users access it, so that users can find the information they need faster and encourage them to get involved in our cause .
Final Design
During the design process, we referred to John Whalen’s “Six Ways of Thinking” and Jeff Johnson’s Gestalt principles, which effectively reduced the user’s cognitive load. Working closely with Antonio and his team and constantly soliciting feedback, we finally finalized the design plan for HELP by AMG. In particular, the navigation bar and footer designs I proposed were highly praised by Antonio and his team.
If I had more time, I would invest more energy in deeply studying user behavior patterns and interaction habits, and verify the effectiveness of the design through more user tests. I will spend time conducting more detailed user experience assessments and iterative optimizations of all aspects of the site, especially those subtle but decisive UI elements such as button responsiveness, color contrast, and font readability. In addition, I will expand the scope of user research to obtain feedback from users of different backgrounds and skill levels to ensure that the website design is universal and accessible. Through this series of more in-depth research and feedback, I believe we can further improve the user appeal and engagement of the site.