Upon encountering the National Endowment for Financial Education, we found a foundation website abundant in content yet mired in complexity stemming from diverse departmental responsibilities. The evolving needs of each department had gradually resulted in a fragmented user experience over time.
Redesigning legacy websites poses considerable challenges, particularly in the delicate balance between user needs and business objectives, compounded by the necessity to retain current users.
Objectives
- Improve Usability
- Optimize Accessibility
- Increase Conversion Rates
- Enhance Mobile Responsiveness
- Incorporate User Feedback
- Align with Business Goals
Solutions
We began by conducting an audit of their website. This involved a lot of my experience as a designer but also relied very heavily on how I would use it personally. Pretty subjective, but you have to start somewhere to develop the hypothesis’.
With the audit distributed to the stakeholders, the next step was to begin a dialog with the stakeholders that involved a huge ideation session to nail down their objectives and considerations for the site. We also wanted them to start considering the users. Ceremonies like mind mapping and journey mapping started to shift the internal teams perspective from being primarily about their business objectives to include the users see these objectives.
The next step was to reach out to the folks teaching the courses provided by NEFE. This allowed us to synthesize a report that highlighted the users’ view of the website and the use of the courseware.
We crafted a redesign workflow that harmonized both user needs and the foundation’s objectives, resulting in a cohesive blueprint for their website overhaul. They were already engaged with a creative agency that was going to handle the rebranding for NEFE so the non branded wireframes were created so that there would not be any confusion as to the intent of this documentation.
Results
- By aligning business objectives with user needs, we successfully resolved the fragmented user experience, resulting in a cohesive website design that inspired user confidence.
- Implementing useful navigation and template structures significantly enhanced the accessibility of the website.
- Downloads for courseware offered on the site increased by 46%, accompanied by positive feedback received at industry conferences.
- Addressing mobile integration challenges provided the creative agency with a clear blueprint for optimizing the website for mobile screens.
- Actively seeking and incorporating user input led to numerous solutions and approaches that substantially improved the overall user experience.
- Business objectives served as the guiding framework for all website initiatives, ensuring that user engagement was aligned with the overarching goals of the organization.
Credits
Client:
National Endowment for Financial Education
Lead Designers:
Michael Salamon
Aaron Congleton