Homepage Redesign
of Californiacolleges.edu
Challenge
Design a Homepage that benefits both users and the organization.
The Californiacolleges.edu homepage had not been updated in over 3 years. It was originally designed to "look good" and guide users to the Sign In page. The page only had informational text about the organization and, in essence, was just and extra step in the login process.
Goal
Facilitate sign-In, increase user registration and reduce bounce rate.
Design a new homepage optimized for all devices that would provide access to login, have a purposeful message and be a tool to recruit new participants.
My role
Design, Leadership, Coaching.
I lead the UX process and coached the product manager through their first product design. I also managed all design activities as well as all deliverables.
This included: design plan, wireframes, interactive prototypes, usability study, visual style guide.
Context
Having a background in education, the product manager had no training or experience in managing, designing or owning a product. With that in mind we took this opportunity to document our process and create protocols that could be repeated and shared throughout the organization.
01
Starting at the beginning
It always starts with "why?"
In this case, why are we redesigning the Homepage?
It's a simple question, but not always an easy one to answer.
Once were clear on the business and user objectives, we were then able to start the "formal" process.
02
Understanding users and why they visit the site
A homepage is rarely designed for only one type of user. In this case, we had 3 user types with 3 different objectives. During the exploratory process, we experimented with different types of layout, each one focusing on a different type of engagement.
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Students: Sign In
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Parents: Register - Get Involved
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Educators: Register - Support
With a better understanding of where we wanted to go, we did some quantitative research (Google Analytics) to get a good sense of where we were and what "needle" we were trying to move.
03
Focus on purpose and measurable outcomes
Having clearly defined measurable outcomes and metrics goes a long way in informing the design. With a focus on student Sign-in and clear target-audience call outs, we started iterating on concept sketches.
04
Learning from the Usability Study.
Once most of the visual design was applied to accommodate 7 break points (including mobile), we ran a usability study that helped us surface issues that stood in the way of the Homepage meeting its stated goals.
After some simple information architecture changes, we ran another study that confirmed our approach and the page performed as we had hoped.
