Roles

User Experience Designer
User Interface Designer
Interaction Designer

Deliverables

UX/UI Design:

User Testing
Site map
Heuristic Analysis
Personas
Style guide
Low-fidelity wireframes
Hight-fidelity mockups and prototypes
Usability tests
Mood board
Information Architecture

Projects Specification

Duration: 2 weeks

Tools:

Invision
Adobe XD
Google Sheets
Google Docs
Miro

User Research

Research

In order to fully understand how people use the DoE website so we conduct 5 research methods

Define a proto-persona
Define a typical wireflow
Conduct s heuristic evaluation
Conduct a usability tests and analyze results
Annotate usability and heuristic issues on main pages

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Findings

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There some paged are very clear to users.
The user takes lots of diggings to find the desired pages or results.
Some pages take too much content per page with a lack of organization.

Problems

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Users spend too much time dedicated to finding information what they look for.
The text size on various parts of the website was too small, making it difficult for users, especially those with visual impairments, to read the content.
Pages were overloaded with dense paragraphs of text, lacking clear separation between different sections.
The website contained numerous hyperlinks leading to external sites, but these were not clearly marked or explained

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Usability Testing -Prioritization Matrix

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we use prioritization matrix to gather all information and notes from usability testing to find out what are will be the most concerns and problems that we will tackle in our design.

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Definition

Through our research, we identified two primary user motivations. Consequently, our design and research efforts were mainly centered on two key personas: students and their parents.

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Many students seeking financial assistance for education on the U.S. Department of Education (DOE) website encounter difficulties in efficiently locating relevant information. The current layout and navigation of the website are not user-friendly, resulting in a time-consuming and often frustrating experience. This challenge not only hampers students' ability to access crucial information but could also adversely impact their future educational opportunities.

How might we redesign the U.S. Department of Education website to enable users, especially students, to quickly and easily access, understand, and utilize vital information about educational funding, thereby positively influencing their educational planning and decision-making processes?

Ideation

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We started with 70 cards total comprised of components from the Home, Students Loans, Grants, Data, and Laws pages.

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We utilized card sorting as a pivotal step in redesigning the site map, ensuring the website's content is organized in a way that significantly enhances information accessibility and user experience.

Wireframes and Prototype

Based on our IA card sorting, we create new site map

Establishing Visual Design

To visually represent all aspects of the DOE, we established a foundational design system and enhanced their existing visual vocabulary. The use of blue palettes, complemented by accent colors, creates an atmosphere of calmness and hope.

User Testing &iteration

Summary

Takeaways

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Observation in Usability Research: Observing how users interact with a product is crucial for identifying usability issues. This approach helps in understanding user experiences and improving the product's user-friendliness.

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The Role of Information Architecture in Web Content: Effective structuring of information on a website is key to a positive user experience. Well-organized information architecture aids in easy navigation and comprehension, thereby boosting user engagement. This becomes especially crucial for educational websites, where facilitating efficient information search is vital to support ongoing student learning.

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U.S. Department of Education Website Redo