Throughout my career, I worked with agencies across the government. I had the opportunity to work with the Nursing Board and redesign their website, which has online features that provide tools to issue licenses, approve education programs, and protect the public from unsafe practices.
I was the Lead Designer on this project, responsible for the overall design direction, and I collaborated with Product and external stakeholders throughout the process.
Tools I used: Figma, Google Analytics, Screaming Frog, Optimal Sort, & Axure.
I was dealing with a legacy website created over 10 years ago. Since then, only the content has changed. Unfortunately, it wasn’t easy to navigate and didn’t look trustworthy, so visitors were not utilizing the site. Instead, they were calling the office for directions. View Old Website >>
The Nursing Board wanted me to create a new experience that better reflects the user’s needs and drive them to use the Online Services.
I took several measures to optimize the website:
I started by gathering requirements, which included:
Key Takeaways :
I did an evaluation of the website and critiqued it to identify areas that had a negative impact on the experience.
I noticed that:
Overall, the site didn’t leave a positive first impression.
Next, I reviewed analytics to check performance and engagement, which uncovered:
I used this data later in the process to help define the hierarchy and how I placed elements on the pages.
High Traffic Pages:
I conducted an inventory of the content using a tool called Screaming Frog that organized the data into a spreadsheet.
It revealed:
I could quickly recognize and eliminate unnecessary pages and content, and later in the process, I didn’t include it with the new organization of information I had defined.
I used this information later to conduct a Card Sorting Activity with stakeholders and reorganize the information on the site.
Next, I partnered with Product to do Research. I wanted to learn more about the users, so we conducted interviews with nurses, students, and stakeholders to understand their experience with the website.
Key Takeaways:
I conducted an activity with stakeholders and used the insights to develop 3 PERSONAS of who we were targeting, and this provided better context for me to solve their problems. I referred to these later when I formed the features and solutions.
We developed:
Overall, users were very busy, and it was more convenient for them to go online to handle business with the Nursing Board.
I had to reconstruct the content on the site and define the navigation. There was a lot of information I was dealing with, and I needed help, so I facilitated a Card Sorting Activity.
I used feedback and findings from previous research to develop a sitemap that displayed how visitors would easily navigate the pages.
Based on the goals and user needs, I incorporated new features, including:
Next, I created wireframes using Axure to display the structure of the page layouts. I incorporated the features and used findings from high-traffic pages found in analytics and feedback to prioritize the hierarchy of information:
After a few demos and iterations, I received approval from the stakeholders, I moved on to the hi-fi designs. Normally, I would do user testing at this fidelity, but in this case, the stakeholders want a more realistic view of the pages.
In the mockups, I applied stylistic and visual details using their branding colors and a combo of images that vibed. Then, I used these to build a functional prototype for usability testing.
I ran moderated usability testing, and Product helped facilitate it. Together, we created a Test Plan with tasks for participants to follow.
Findings:
Positive
Negative
Recommendations:
The results of the redesign were immediate and productive.