Methodologies

• Stakeholder Interview

• Data syntheiss

• Card sorting

• Architecture diagram

• Rapid prototyping

• Style guide

• Moodboarding

• Visual redesign

• Usability reviews

Tools

• Zoom

• InVision

• Otter

• Figma

• Google Docs

Caffeine

• Girl, I don’t even know.

Stakeholder interview

My role during the initial stages of the project was to conduct research interviews and ask followup questions to get a sense of who the client is and their needs.

The board of MCGT has a passion for equity, inclusion, and a willingness to learn and better themselves as an organization to make sure all gifted and talented children get the resources they deserve.

I asked them if they could walk us through what their experience as parents of gifted children. What followed was one of the best interviews I’ve had in my career. Each member walked us through the pain points and joys of having a gifted child. We really connected to this client and the opportunity space. A space which is similar to my Bloom application since the stakeholder is both a user and a client (like myself as a designer and floral consumer). 

I could not write quotes down fast enough, so I’m happy we ottered the whole conversation. The biggest takeaway here was that “parents arrive to the site out of desperation”. They come to MCGT as a last resort since their schools, their peers, and their environment is not supportive of their child. We knew we had to make the site a place for them to get the resources they need.

 A small pivot

Because we were so passionate about the organization, we had so many ideas to UX more than just their website. They mentioned funding was very difficult both before and during the pandemic. Applying UX principles to some strategies rather than digital products is something I’m very passionate and intrigued by, so I wanted to work some crowdsourcing strategies to maximize their funding. However the team was informed that our focus was solely the website, and everything else can be suggested in our next steps section of the recommendation report. 

This is a huge learning moment for me. Our project was designed for us as a team who is dropped into an ongoing project to fulfill a specific task, so we had to move forward with only the website in mind. 

A new site architecture

The MCGT site has over 100 pages. Based on the google analytics, the team discovered the most popular pages were only being accessible through a search engine, among other data for the site architecture. We knew restructuring it and the way it conveys information had to be a top priority for our work. Users found it very difficult to navigate the site and find the information they are desperately looking for. This was reinforced by the results of a mass survey we created and sent out to existing members of the MCGT community. 

We drafted an architecture diagram but had trouble organizing the resources tab since it was acting as a catchall for everything without a noticeable category for the team. We conducted a card sorting exercise in order to help us organize the main navigation bar and arrived at our finalized architecture diagram. 

The first redesign

The team redesigned key screens within our architecture diagram for them to look cleaner and more professional. My role for the rest of the project will unfold shortly. I was tasked with prototyping a screen flow to help parents understand what being gifted and talented meant, a checklist to help them evaluate whether their child may be gifted and talented, and ultimately lead them to an evaluation by a professional (which is the only way to make sure your child is gifted and talented). 

This felt…awkward. Simply put: the aesthetics of the site and the original redesign did not match the spirit of the organization, nor did it strike any emotional chord that I believe is so vital to UXing the UI and aesthetics of a product. So I brought this up to the team and they agreed.   

Redesigning our redesign 

We conducted A and B testing of our initial redesign and my new version to the stakeholders and during usability reviews. All participants agreed that the new version represented the spirit of the organization and most importantly of a parent’s experience navigating the space with their child. After their approval we created a style guide and applied the changes throughout our prototype and arrived to the finalized version which you can experience see: here. 

We wanted to create the feeling of electricity but use the softer colors like lavender to soothe the parents that came to the site out of desperation, one user specifically pointed this out during a usability review so we felt very good about the results. 

Here are the four key screens I designed, all within the “is my child gifted” screenflow.

 Is my child gifted quiz screen flow

 Future steps:

• Check the website for mobile adaptation and make sure the content doesn’t lose structure on a mobile platform.

• Creating the community page to include “Peer to Peer Connect” for parents to connect their children to others and create a pen pal system for mutual support, and “Parent Connect” for parents to have a forum style page to discuss whatever they need to with each other.

• I would love to connect with MCGT in the future and bring some strategies for them to crowdsource funds, get more social media engagement, and most importantly create more touchpoint for parents to flow into their ecosystem.

• Create diversity and equity strategies for MCGT to evolve into who they want to be: a diverse community that lifts up children regardless of their background.