Best Buddies at UC Davis
Best Buddies at UC Davis
Assisting UC Davis students with intellectual and developmental disabilities (IDD).
Assisting UC Davis students with intellectual and developmental disabilities (IDD).
ROLE
ROLE
Product Designer
Product Designer
TIMELINE
TIMELINE
Oct 2023-Mar 2024
Oct 2023-Mar 2024
TEAM
TEAM
Product Designers (7)
Software Engineers
Product Designers (7)
Software Engineers
Visit Website
ROLE
Product Designer
TIMELINE
Oct 2023-Mar 2024
OVERVIEW
Best Buddies International is a non-profit organization that strives to enhance the lives of people with intellectual and developmental disabilities (IDD) by fostering friendships and aiding in leadership development. The UC Davis chapter echoes this mission by hosting social events and matching Buddies with Peer Buddies (a person without IDD) every year.
THE PROBLEM
The previous Best Buddies website lacked chapter information and clear hierarchy, making it difficult for members (both new and old) to find resources on both club and community events. Our goal was to design a website that comprehensively represents the UC Davis chapter, organizes information and resources to help guide members, and successfully communicates the original mission of Best Buddies.
APPROACH
RESEARCH
To better understand the thought processes of our target audience, my team created user personas to anticipate the goals of both current and new Best Buddies members. We created task flows for these personas to figure out the kinds of features that would be necessary for our users to navigate our website successfully, while simultaneously preventing user drop-off.
LOW-FIDELITY AND MID-FIDELITY
The first step in our redesign of the Best Buddies website was to improve readability and ease of navigation by implementing a visual hierarchy. Our focus was to preserve all relevant content and while balancing some of the more text-heavy pages with intentional image placements and color choices.
When refining our mid-fidelity designs, I aimed to maintain Best Buddies' friendly brand voice by incorporating different shades of the organization's existing brand colors. To emphasize Best Buddies' mission of connection, I created a fun carousel of cards to highlight images of the friendships made possible by the organization. This interactive design also serves to capture the interests of potential members.
USABILITY TESTING
After finishing my mid-fidelity designs, I surveyed two users on the usability of the website as a whole. They were directed to complete two tasks: join the club as a new member and renew the membership as a current member. One thing I looked out for especially was how their experiences differed from the user flows we drafted before designing.
The results of testing showed the efficacy of our simple interface designs and identified a few navigation issues as well. As we began working on our hi-fis, we continued to revise our navigation bar and dropdown menus to improve the website's legibility.
HI-FIDELITY
With the feedback I received from usability testing, I played around with the placement of text and images and implemented components like yellow buttons to highlight calls to action. For the page about regional and state events, I decided to go with a bento-style layout, which compartmentalized all content into distinct sections, creating a cleaner and more intuitive user experience.
Before we moved onto designing the mobile UI, my team met with software developers to examine their progress and clarify any design fixes.
Making our design responsive was a challenge, especially for some of the more text-heavy pages. However, the bento design provided an easy fix for our concerns with organization. Instead of collapsing some of the content as a way to prevent cognitive overload, we decided to keep everything on one page and alternate the placement of each image and text section vertically. This way, the structure of the content emphasizes the action of scrolling, which can help to reduce mental strain so that users are able to view all of the extensive information without needing to start a new flow.
REFLECTION
Working on this project was truly a valuable experience for me because it was my first time creating a product for a client. Learning how to clearly communicate our ideas or concerns to them was imperative to building a strong relationship, one in which they felt confident in our designs and in the efficacy of our end-product. I collaborated with a team of incredibly passionate women on this project, all dedicated to designing a visually engaging yet accessible website for all to use. We presented our final designs to the board at Best Buddies UC Davis, who applauded our thorough research and design system.
OVERVIEW
Best Buddies International is a non-profit organization that strives to enhance the lives of people with intellectual and developmental disabilities (IDD) by fostering friendships and aiding in leadership development. The UC Davis chapter echoes this mission by hosting social events and matching Buddies with Peer Buddies (a person without IDD) every year.
THE PROBLEM
The previous Best Buddies website lacked chapter information and clear hierarchy, making it difficult for members (both new and old) to find resources on both club and community events. Our goal was to design a website that comprehensively represents the UC Davis chapter, organizes information and resources to help guide members, and successfully communicates the original mission of Best Buddies.
APPROACH
RESEARCH
To better understand the thought processes of our target audience, my team created user personas to anticipate the goals of both current and new Best Buddies members. We created task flows for these personas to figure out the kinds of features that would be necessary for our users to navigate our website successfully, while simultaneously preventing user drop-off.
LOW-FIDELITY AND MID-FIDELITY
The first step in our redesign of the Best Buddies website was to improve readability and ease of navigation by implementing a visual hierarchy. Our focus was to preserve all relevant content and while balancing some of the more text-heavy pages with intentional image placements and color choices.
When refining our mid-fidelity designs, I aimed to maintain Best Buddies' friendly brand voice by incorporating different shades of the organization's existing brand colors. To emphasize Best Buddies' mission of connection, I created a fun carousel of cards to highlight images of the friendships made possible by the organization. This interactive design also serves to capture the interests of potential members.
USABILITY TESTING
After finishing my mid-fidelity designs, I surveyed two users on the usability of the website as a whole. They were directed to complete two tasks: join the club as a new member and renew the membership as a current member. One thing I looked out for especially was how their experiences differed from the user flows we drafted before designing.
The results of testing showed the efficacy of our simple interface designs and identified a few navigation issues as well. As we began working on our hi-fis, we continued to revise our navigation bar and dropdown menus to improve the website's legibility.
HI-FIDELITY
With the feedback I received from usability testing, I played around with the placement of text and images and implemented components like yellow buttons to highlight calls to action. For the page about regional and state events, I decided to go with a bento-style layout, which compartmentalized all content into distinct sections, creating a cleaner and more intuitive user experience.
Before we moved onto designing the mobile UI, my team met with software developers to examine their progress and clarify any design fixes.
Making our design responsive was a challenge, especially for some of the more text-heavy pages. However, the bento design provided an easy fix for our concerns with organization. Instead of collapsing some of the content as a way to prevent cognitive overload, we decided to keep everything on one page and alternate the placement of each image and text section vertically. This way, the structure of the content emphasizes the action of scrolling, which can help to reduce mental strain so that users are able to view all of the extensive information without needing to start a new flow.
REFLECTION
Working on this project was truly a valuable experience for me because it was my first time creating a product for a client. Learning how to clearly communicate our ideas or concerns to them was imperative to building a strong relationship, one in which they felt confident in our designs and in the efficacy of our end-product. I collaborated with a team of incredibly passionate women on this project, all dedicated to designing a visually engaging yet accessible website for all to use. We presented our final designs to the board at Best Buddies UC Davis, who applauded our thorough research and design system.