Case Study
Rights CoLAB
Rights CoLAB is an international human rights non-profit organization that advances human rights by fostering cross-industry collaboration across the world and encourages sustainable change through innovation. My team was tasked with a website redesign in order to improve the site’s navigation and structure, as well as better reflect who the organization is through improved branding.
Overview
Role
UX/UI Designer
Timeline
August 2021 – September 2021
Problem
Rights CoLab provides many valuable resources to their users, but their current site is difficult to navigate and the structure causes information being easily buried. Additionally, the site’s design does not reflect the organization’s current values or image.
Goals
1. Reorganize the site’s navigation in a way that is more intuitive for users.
2. Update the site’s design to portray the organization as innovative, trustworthy, and change-driven.
3. Demonstrate the connectedness of content throughout the site.
DISCOVER
We needed a solid foundation for understanding the current website's strengths and weaknesses so that we could determine what to improve upon. After conducting a SWOT analysis, reviewing the site's analytics, and running an initial usability test we had the following insights:
Understanding the current site
78%
of users view on a desktop
60%
bounce rate
94%
task success rate
The site's navigation was not intuitive and users were guessing on where to find specific information based on context and assumptions.
The language used on the site was not accessible to users being introduced to Rights CoLAB for the first time.
Users don't get a good idea of who the organization is based on the site, and the stock images make the site appear inauthentic.
There’s a lot of connected and related content throughout the site, but a lot of it is also buried due to poor navigation and site structure.
In order to understand best industry practices, I conducted competitive and comparative research on organizations mentioned by potential users. In order to synthesize my findings, I put together feature inventories and content audits.
Understanding the competition
In order to better understand user needs and pain points when using non-profit websites we spoke with nine potential users, ranging from experts in their field to concerned citizens wanting to learn more. We synthesized our findings through affinity mapping:
Understanding our users
DEFINE
Based on our research, we were able to create two user personas to inform our design decisions and further empathize with our users. Meet Courtney and Rebecca!
Who are we designing for?
Based on our synthesized competitive research, I created a site map that better aligned with Rights CoLab's evolved focus on initiatives rather than industries, a navigation that enables users to more efficiently search for specific content through the Publications page and become more engaged through Get Involved.
Information architecture
DESIGN
My team designed in low, medium, and high fidelity throughout this process, testing and iterating as we went.
To seamlessly convert our designs to high fidelity I created a style guide to inform our design decisions.
After two rounds of moderated user testing at different levels of fidelity with 16 users, we completed over five rounds of iterations based on the following results.
Usability testing
89%
task success rate in test one
95%
task success rate in test two
6%
increase in task success rate
Users struggled to locate podcasts and newsletters. This indicated that more work needed done on the information architecture.
Users easily used the new filtering system but easily overlooked them at first due to the hierarchy of the page.
The interconnectivity of the material throughout the site wasn’t clear to users because there was no indication of what the article was about before clicking on it.
Our new design for the home screen did not resonate with users and was not effective at portraying Rights CoLab as innovative, global, and change-driven like we intended.
DELIVER
