Overview of BRIDGEGOOD
BRIDGEGOOD is a non-profit community design studio which aims to bridge the digital literacy and opportunity divide. Primary funders include Google.org and the Golden State Warriors. BRIDGEGOOD focuses on diversity, inclusion and accessibility.
Problem:
"How might we improve the websites user experience to speed up the VIP Access registration process?"
Solution:
According to user data, our team decided to reimagine the current layout and registration process to generate excitement.
Client:
BRIDGEGOOD (Board of directors, executive staff, and Creatives)
Team:
Product Manager: Shaun Tai
Designers: Omar Sinada, Kristina Kolesnekova, Hailey Miller and Kyung Bae Kim.
Engineer: Trung Huynh
My Role:
UI/UX Designer
Design Tools:
Research: Google, Eventbrite, AIGA SF, Behance and Dribbble
Ideation: Pen, paper and whiteboard
Wireframing and Prototyping: Adobe XD
Visual Design: Adobe Illustrator and Google Material Design
Duration:
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Persona
Our team created a BRIDGEGOOD Creative persona based on user feedback about their experiences and what they thought the current VIP Access feature needed. The persona gave us a better understanding of the user base before we proceeded. Our team determined that our audience will be in college searching for networking and career opportunities.
Persona
Wesley's User Journey
We mapped Wesley's journey from where he started, to eventually reaching his goal with BRIDGEGOOD. Determining the steps in Wesley's journey helped show us where in the process our sprint should focus on.
SWOT Analysis
Conducting this strategic planning technique helped us understand the current state of the platform and how it compares to other similar services.
Strengths
The strengths are connecting Creatives with industry professionals, exposing Creatives to common practices in the field, and offering networking opportunities for attendants.
Weaknesses
Some weaknesses are unorganized event information, lack of excitement for the events, and information being too intimidating for a first-time user.
Opportunities
The opportunities are to reimagining the registration process, ease the nerves for the Creatives, and improving visual hierarchy for event information.
Threats
The VIP Access Page is threatened by competitors from other event planning companies similar to BRIDGEGOOD.
Competitive Analysis
We conducted a competitor analysis to understand existing services that were similar to BRIDGEGOOD's VIP Access Page.
Once we completed our research, we concluded that both platforms are very similar in the registration process. We were surprised to discover that some of the events on AIGA SF links to Eventbrite! A common theme we found was that a majority of the events were free, and that ticket tracking was simple.
How Might We's
Our next step was defining the problem statement for our redesign. We used the How Might We technique to generate ideas and focused on the issues that occurred the most. We wrote potential situations a Creative might go through while on the VIP Access page and put them on the whiteboard.
After categorizing the ideas, the team concluded that visual hierarchy was essential for the Creatives registering for events. We also agreed that the current page needed to generate excitement and project credibility.
How Might We's
Team Sketches
Having decided on the features for the redesign, we sketched lo-fidelity mockups for the VIP Access page and the event registration page. To project credibility behind the featured events, the logos of all of the associated companies were included on the page. Testimonials and social media posts from the Creatives that attended events were placed into a feed in order to showcase shared experiences.
Lo-fidelity mockups sketched by the team.
Wireframes
Based on the sketches, the team created wireframes. We designed a full width illustration showing the different companies a Creative can visit. We prioritized the events according to date so the upcoming event would be the noticeable. We also included features that would reassure a new user: testimonials, companies they could visit, and social media posts.
Following several rounds of feedback from the product leads, a set of higher-fidelity versions were created.
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Final Product Key Components
Visual Hierarchy
The previous VIP Access page failed to list events in any particular order. We designed the upcoming events to be on the top and much larger than the other events. Including the logo of the company for each event also excites the Creative for the event.
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Testimonials
Creating a testimonial page doesn't only reassure the creative that the events are beneficial, but also shows that they are career-building resources. New users will continue their engagement with BRIDGEGOOD once they see the events as learning opportunities.
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Companies Visited
One of BRIDGEGOOD’s selling points is their connections with companies throughout the tech and creative field. While conducting research, we discovered that users weren't aware of the companies they were visiting. To solve this issue, visually displaying the brands will entice new users to the platform.
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Organizers
During the understanding phase, we discovered that when attending events, the Creatives didn't know who were the event organizers since there was not a way to distinguish between the organizers and the attendees. To overcome this problem, we separated the attendees and the organizers in order for the creatives to be able to easily locate the BRIDGEGOOD staff upon arrival.
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Final Product
Hi-fidelity mockup of desktop.
VIP Access Page
Event Registration Page
Next Steps
Since our feature redesign is shipped, we will continue to collect data of the user activity and retention rate through this page. We will be able to measure whether the redesign has generated excitement and increased the number of attendants to the VIP events and improve accordingly.
Key Takeaways
1. Designing for the user.
Since the VIP Access page is meant for the Creatives to attend exclusive events at tech companies and access to design resources, our design demonstrates how attending such an event might feel like. Displaying testimonials and social media posts from creatives that attended events and gained from the experience reassures the Creative.
2. Visual Hierarchy for most important info.
The previous VIP Access page had no particular order for the events being displayed, so we moved the upcoming events section to the top of the page, where it takes up an entire row.
