I interviewed with the creative director and UX designer to gain insight on the business objectives, the development of the website and who the website is targeted towards.

We highlighted some problems:

• Website is hardcoded and hard to update information or news
• Do users get what they need from the first page?

Over the course of a few weeks, I did an audit of the website and affinity mapped possible issues under Usability Heuristics categories and pitched the steps of the plan.

I wanted to determine what i want to evaluate by identifying the specific usability aspects.

From there, I created a thorough user test plan and recruited three participants who were not familiar with the website.

I designed task scenarios that aligned with the perspective of potential clients and also included a post-task questionnaire to gather feedback. To document the user's interactions with the website, I utilized video and screen recording.

As the facilitator, I led the user test and created task scenarios. During the test, I assigned an observer/note-taker who recorded the participants' actions and behaviors and my supervisor, the stakeholder, to observe additional insights from the user's feedback.

This way, the stakeholders are part of the process directly and can ask specific questions that may help to inform future design decisions that resonates with them and the company.

I synthesized the qualitative and quantitative data into a Miro board. I color coded the frequency of positive and poor actions the users took for each task to understand whether a specific part of the interface needs be re-designed.

I quickly added comments/notes during the synthesis phase that pointed out significant user difficulties and ease of use. Additionally, I graphed the number of clicks, errors, and time of each task to quantify the user's performance. This way, I can visually see where users has difficulty on certain tasks and other pain points.

I took all the notes from above and clustered them to identify emerging themes and patterns from the user test. This helped me pin point promising suggestions for improvements for the website. I also noted areas where users responded positively. This way, the stakeholders understand areas to improve and areas that can do not require changes.

After summarizing my findings and further grouping them to into common themes. I collaborated with my supervisor, senior UI/UX designer and developer to come up with possible solutions for each theme. We then organized the solutions for the homepage and other webpages.

With our design team, we then mapped the solutions on the priority matrix to understand what would be the most impact for the user experience and how much time it will take for the developer.

I continued to create the sketches to showcase homepage suggestions based on the priority matrix.

I wanted to continued to create the sketches to showcase homepage suggestions based on the team activities.

• Created a new section below the hero section to allow updated information about DCM can be seen here.

• I adjusted the dropdown arrows for the navbar to match the direction of the triangle in the logo.

• Removed the rows of small arrows from the sides of the sections and simplified the card call outs to reduce cognitive overload.

Initially, I was handed this project with no timeline and open to how I wanted to approach it. I took this to create my own deadlines, user test plan, and how to synthesized the data. I uncovered really compelling insights that resonated with my supervisor, senior UI/UX designer and the developer.

Some key takeaways from this project are:

• Areas for improvement in my user testing process. While I was able to create my own methodology, I realized that incorporating additional resources and steps could have provided even richer insights. Moving forward, I plan to explore different approaches and expand my toolkit to refine my testing process and better serve user needs.
• A key lesson I learned from this project is the importance of fostering collaboration with all stakeholders. Through my interactions with the design team, I gained valuable insights into their expectations and preferences, which helped me make informed design decisions.