User Research and Design Recommendations for Blue-Future’s Online Outreach

About Blue Future

Blue Future is a youth-led civic engagement startup focused on organizing young people around progressive electoral campaigns. As a relatively new organization, Blue Future wants to effectively expand their outreach through improved online platforms, by applying UX Design principles. The goal is to design a compelling website and social media content, and create an overall brand that speaks to the values of the Millennial Generation and Generation Z.

Project Overview

Our team of three UX Design students at General Assembly DC was commissioned to assist Blue Future delineate a clear path to improve their website design, define an overall branding, and offer recommendations for future enhancements. The project timeline was 2–1/2 weeks.

The objective was to create a simple, instinctive, and action oriented experience to engage and equip young people with tools to volunteer, organize, and run for office.

Project Team: Kiah Guilford | Pritthijit (Raja) Kundu| Hunter Holmes

Exploring the root cause

The team used the 5 Whys iterative interrogative technique early in the research process to understand the reasons behind young people not getting involved in political activities, not using Blue Future’s website, and seek out not so apparent challenges that inhibit any efforts to attain the goal.

Competitive Analysis

“A UX competitor analysis involves assessing competitor sites to see how they design for their users — potentially solving for similar user needs.” — Matt Isherwood

Some selected competitor sites were analyzed to primarily compare their voice and tone, and layout designs. These comparisons helped us to assess their effectiveness and identify key elements that enhance user experience. 

SWOT Analysis: Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities & Threats

SWOT analysis is a strategic planning technique for evaluating strengths and weaknesses of a person or organization, and identifying the opportunities and threats an individual or an organization may have. The UX team identified a few items in each SWOT category for Blue Future, and recommended further assessment in the future.

Generational Trends: Millennials vs Gen Z

Crucial to Blue Future’s mission, is understanding how to reach out to young Americans; and making the task a little more complex is the fact that the young generation is distinctly divided into two groups — the Millennials and Generation Z. Our research indicates that the approach to engaging these two groups must be designed to align with the different trends these two generations display.

However, despite many differences, a key trait both groups share is the desire for authenticity. Also important for designers to keep in mind is their short attention spans, which reflects on how they interact with online platforms.

User Research

To get better insights into the young generation’s participation in civic activities and understand some specific behavior patterns of Blue Future’s user base, a short survey was sent to 13 users. We received 5 responses within the time limit allotted for this activity. Based on the responses some key user ideas were noted.

As the final step in user research, a usability testing was conducted with potential users to gain feedback on Blue Future’s current website. The users highlighted issues with the existing site which we grouped into four categories. Two categories primarily dealt with the style of the site: Opacity & Color and Text Wall. The remaining categories dealt with how users felt when asked to do tasks on the site: Decision Fatigue and Unclear Calls to Action.

Research Synthesis

Research findings were analyzed and synthesized, to be used in the design process, as well as to inform the client for future development. The team identified some key elements in four categories - Opportunities available for Blue Future, Common Values of the target generations, High Impact Site Features and High Impact Experience Features.

Personas

Two personas were created by compiling user research information and identifying behavior trends of the users. As the primary Blue Future base, each target generation was represented by a persona — one who is familiar with Blue Future’s mission, and the other who might need additional motivation to get involved. Meet Sienna and Greg.

Design Process

“Design is so simple. That’s why it’s so complicated. “— Paul Rand

The design process is a journey from exploration to iteration, but never linear, creating a complex, seemingly chaotic track that is anything but random. Our journey began with creating a storyboard, using the personas we identified, to setup a context for the design challenge.

The next step was to develop a structure for the website to help users find information and complete tasks. Information Architecture plays a very important role in the entire design process by informing a number of processes, such as content strategy, user interface design, interaction design, and in developing wireframes and prototypes.

To achieve a visually attractive, engaging and effective user interface, the team developed a Style Guide, to inform our prototype design.

The team worked on Wireframe conceptualization, producing iterations of hand sketched wireframes. Some selected wireframes were transferred to low-fidelity digital wireframes using the Sketch software.

Usability Testing

It was time for the team to test these wireframes and get feedback from some users to understand the usability and effectiveness of the features and user flows. A usability test script was developed as a guide for conducting the tests, and some users were requested to participate. User insights and feedback from these tests were used to further refine the concepts before the final prototype was developed.

Prototype

We created four sample pages as prototypes to demonstrate the design intent and inform the design development:

Landing Page

Issues Page

About Page

Get Involved Page

Recommendations for Future Steps

Search Engine Optimization (SEO)

Gamification: Tiered incentive program

Branding: Logo, videos, original content

Outreach: Instagram, other promotions

Inspiration Page: Quotes and profiles of celebrity personalities, such as Obama

Chatbot

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Let’s explore the future. Thank you!