Boys & Girls Club
King County Website
Summary
Freelance project, working with graphic designer, to update the Boys and Girls Clubs of King County website. I conducted comparative study, sitemap analysis, heuristic study, and created a list of user personas.
From the user research conducted, I was able to make recommendations on a new site map structure and global navigation. The goal was to increase usability and decrease drop-offs.
Duration: ~10 hours over a week
Platform: Responsive Web
My role: Subcontracted UX Research consultant working with graphic designer.
Reading time: 2 minutes
Research
Understanding the user
Using provided information from the client, I created a series of personas.
This was a short assignment so I didn't have time to do lengthy user research. I had to use research provided to give me an idea of who the keys users were. This gave me enough insight to categorize user needs for information architecture recommendations.
Comparative analysis
I wanted to see how other non-profits navigate users to their content. I also wanted to see how much priority they give to certain subjects, to see if some pages on the current BGCKC site were combinable.
After comparing to other similar sites I saw that they needed to update quite a few areas, especially the navigation and accessibility. Red Cross was a stand out for ease of navigation.
SEO site audit
I used an SEO site audit tool to see how many pages there were and if anything was broken.
There were 135 pages, 88 external links, 22 PDF pages linked out, many redundant links, and 404 error pages.
It was clear that the website got bloated over the years of updates. It needed refocussing and reorganization.
Current sitemap
From the SEO tool information I was able to make a sitemap. The old navigation focussed on actions and offerings. This lead the user down confusing paths because they weren't sure if "Join a Club" applied to themselves or another age group.
We were able to get access to their Google Analytics, which helped us understand where drop-offs ocurred. From the home page people would select primary navigation, like Programs, which could lead to a dead end for their user group. They most likely would have to go back to the navigation and click through the action or offer oriented navigation. If the offer (e.g. clubs, programs, etc.) didn't apply to them then they'd have to go back or quit.
Suggestions
Proposed sitemap
A lot of pages could be combined to condense the page count, leading to an easier navigable site. The proposed sitemap hosts about half the number of pages, having combined similar pages and CTA's.
Simpler navigation after initial click. Still grouped by action but splits into user paths. Splitting into user paths would funnel people to where they're meant to go.
After I came up with the first iteration, the graphics designer and I came up with 3 more iterations. Two iterations were presented to the client.
Navigation example
This is an example of some of the navigation iterations that was presented to the client, in low fidelity.
Programs are organized by age group, with sub-navigation for specific programs. We made use of a direct CTA (Core Programming) that could be used to highlight a featured offering. The Get Involved section groups categories together that used to be separate.
These recommendations were presented to the client and implementation is ongoing with a design agency. We are expecting to see an increase in program signups and a decrease in bounce rate.
