Role : UX & Graphic Designer
WSU Impact advocates at the state-level in support of Washington State University’s mission of accessible education and impactful research, but they need to engage potential alumni advocates to get that work done. I worked with Insight Strategic Partners to redesign their site and make it easy to take action.
WSU Impact needed both an aesthetic and functional site redesign. The aesthetics of their site was outdated and clunky. The sign-up function and ability to contact legislators were buried and it was almost impossible for staff members to update the site. They also wanted a tighter, more impactful logo.
See original main page and logo below.
I conducted interviews with staff and internal stakeholders to understand what they needed to do and how they wanted to present themselves. I did some competitor research, looking at similar sites like UW Impact etc. I also had access to customer profiles from the campaign manager. You can check those out here.
Based on those interviews I wrote an outline of the necessary information on the site, showing how the pages could be reorganized..
The focus here was to unbury the action items for site visitors and highlight what WSU has accomplished. View outline here.
Using the WSU style guide, I mocked up three options using templates in squarespace, weighting different colors, images, and type options that fall within the WSU brand expression. In this phase I also mocked up new logo options so we made one decision about the aesthetic, and matched the site and logo style.
The team ended up choosing the logo with ACT highlighted in a different color.
Once we agreed on a moder, sans serif style I put the pages together based on our content outline. Ways to engage were front and center on every page.
A functionality snag: The original design included on-page forms that allowed people to participate easily, without having to click through several pages or enter several rows of personal information. I surveyed several engagement platforms with the ability to embed and the team was ready to move forward with one. At the last minute the WSU representative discovered that they had a year left on a contract with the existing platform that required that users register in order to contact their legislators. I did my best to interweave links to connect the clunky platform to the site.
Once I got the site put together, I did a round of user testing with seven participants in WSU’s audience to see the site in action and identify areas to improve. People quickly understood what the WSU did and what they could do on the site. The major problem was most people struggling with the existing advocacy platform. There were also some smaller takeaways I used to make subtle improvements. You can read more about the takeaways and revisions here.
The team now has a site they feel comfortable using as an endpoint for campaigns. Hopefully, they are able to change advocacy platforms in the next legislative cycle. I’m looking forward to getting more data on impacts from them soon, especially around email signups and “email your reps” clicks.