Project Overview

Tech Fleet is a membership-based distributed organization that provides UX and Product services for nonprofit organizations. Its members are UX design and research volunteers at the start of their careers, looking to gain real-world experience and advance their careers. 

Since its founding in 2020, Tech Fleet has relied on Slack for internal communication and organization, while its online presence was limited to the LinkedIn page. This project aimed to generate insights to inform website content, navigation, and information architecture.

Problem Statement

Amid the significant growth of Tech Fleet’s member base and increasing demand for Tech Fleet’s services, the organization needed a centralized location – a website to serve as a stand-alone representation of Tech Fleet and its work. The main problem was there was no content for the website yet. Based on that, the research had the following tasks:

1. Understand what information and transactions users would need the website for.
2. Design how information on the website is organized and discovered.
3. Validate that the information architecture and navigation are useable and useful.

Users

My Contribution

We worked in a small team of two. My primary role was UX researcher and my partner’s designer. However, we agreed to support each other’s tasks and share the responsibility.

My primary tasks:

• Draw out the research strategy.
• Conduct user research.
• Develop and test information architecture and navigation.
• Run additional usability tests with wireframes and prototypes.

Scope & Limitations

Scope

In scope were discovery research, the design of low-fidelity wireframes, and evaluative research. At this stage, we focused on Tech Fleet members and nonprofits.

Discovery research comprised of:

• Understanding what information users need to get when visiting the Tech Fleet website.
• Developing a sitemap.
• Creating, testing, and reiterating the navigation.

In the evaluative research, we focused on testing the usability of the low-fidelity wireframes and validating the website’s navigation.

Limitations

1. Limited resources affected our ability to recruit participants and test.
2. Difficulties reaching participants in NGOs representatives group.
3. The project was discontinued (for personal reasons) and did not conclude with a finished prototype as initially planned.

Process

The process for discovery research comprised of several research activities built on each other’s results that led to establishing a site map, information architecture, and website navigation.

From the kick-off meeting with the stakeholder – Tech Fleet’s Lead – we aspired to create a website design with simple, intuitive site map and navigation.

From the stakeholder interview, we derived the must-have website functions:

• Communicate Tech Fleet’s mission, purpose, and processes.
• Present and describe UX and Product services.
• Showcase Tech Fleet’s work.
• Connect new coming members to Slack.
• Help clients connect with Tech Fleet.

Competitive Analysis

Focusing on the MVP, we began our quest by gathering information about competitors in the space, comparing their websites to better understand user expectations and the market.

Check out the slides for details below.

Survey

Next, we wanted to learn about the experience of Tech Fleet members when first joining Tech Fleet. What questions do they have? What information do they need? With a survey, our goal was to understand how a website can help future members answer pressing questions.

Check out the slides for details below.

User Interviews

Following the survey, we wanted to dive deeper into some of the questions. We conducted interviews with two primary website users:

• Tech Fleet members
• Nonprofit organizations.

Card Sort

The interviews and the surveys have led us to establish the main content themes and specific navigation items for the Tech Fleet website. To test our assumption, we conducted a card sort study. The objective of the card sort was to gauge how the current Tech Fleet members navigate and organize the main content topics for the Tech Fleet website.

Check out the slides for details below.

Tree Test

The tree test was the next step in determining the information architecture.

The main focus was to compare two alternative navigation labels. Our target audience was people familiar with the UX Design discipline – Tech Fleet members and non-members, without prior knowledge of Tech Fleet.

Check out the slides for details below.

Concept Test

For the next phase, we designed low-fidelity wireframes to test a new version of navigation labels and the overall functionality of the site map.

Go here to see the wireframes and interact with the prototype.

Check out the slides for details below.

Outcome & Next Steps

Conclusion

The low fidelity wireframes concept test conducted using Maze web-based tool leads to conclude that generally, the results across all tasks and considering the difficulty rating and the feedback show that the mental model of the majority of the testers coincides with the site map proposed.

Next Steps

Based on the research results, we propose the following steps for further design iterations:

1. Conduct a moderated usability study to validate the assumptions made based on the results of this study and the limitations posed by the tool used.
2. Consider adding a How it works section to the About page.
3. Focus on understanding user expectations from clicking the CTA button.