Project Summary

As part of my Interaction Design class, I collaborated with a group of three peers on a project to redesign the website for the International Institute of Wisconsin (IIW), a local non-profit serving refugees in Wisconsin. Led by Dr. Brian Curry, CEO of IIW, our objective was to revamp the website to better align with the organization's goals and cater to its audience. My role encompassed designing key pages such as About Us, Home, Donations, and Affiliations, as well as creating and refining wireframes for the entire website.

Objectives

1. Address the lack of audience focus.

2. Fix the over reliance on generic stock photos.

3. Highlight impactful stories to foster audience connections.

4. Incorporate stakeholder feedback into subsequent designs. 

My Tasks

• Created a design process plan by adopting a series of short sprints spanning over a couple of weeks, where each sprint focused on a specific aspect of the redesign process, from ideation to refinement.

• Defined the target audience after recognizing the need to tailor content to specific user groups. We identified three primary audiences: newcomers seeking involvement, potential donors, and current refugees.

• Created Personas based on the target audiences to better understand them and their needs from the website.

• Restructured Content to streamline the website’s architecture by consolidating and removing redundant pages.

• Use Figma to design and prototype high-fidelity wireframes that demonstrate how the website works.

• Utilized stakeholder feedback to further align designs to user needs.

Results

• The redesigned website garnered praise from stakeholders for its improved user experience and alignment with organizational objectives.

• Our engagement with Dr. Curry provided valuable insights into client interaction while adhering to tight deadlines within a team environment honed my time management skills.

• Embracing agile methodologies equipped us with practical experience applicable to future projects and careers in interaction design.

Final Thoughts

The IIW website redesign project gave me experience with engaging with real-world stakeholders and working in a team within an agile environment. This project also allowed me to showcase how focusing on users and storytelling can effectively communicate organizational goals. By working together, continuously improving, and using agile methods, our team met the client's needs and gained valuable insights for future interaction design projects.