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MyUmbrella:
A desktop Site Redesign
MyUmbrella's current website
Project Overview | MyUmbrella is a social networking app for the LGBTQ+ community, but has evolved into a web-focused platform to share personal stories and opinions on various topics. MyUmbrella needs a redesign which will have a focus on improving the navigation and information architecture of the site.
Timeline | 3 Weeks
My Team | Braidon (Project Manager + Interaction Designer) and Karina (UX Research)
My Role| Information Architecture + Visual Design
Let's Get Personal
Interviewed 6 LGBTQ+ media consumers over Zoom
Affinity Map about the users
Interviews | We sat down and interviewed 6 consumers of LGBTQ+ media. Each conversation was roughly 30 minutes long, and followed a set of scripted questions with some room for spontaneity. Our interviewees were asked to describe how often they consume queer media, what types of platforms are preferred, and what information they look for. Each insight contributed to improving MyUmbrella's online experience.
Affinity Map about the response users had of MyUmbrella
Affinity Mapping | After sifting through all data from the interviews, we organized the information into two different affinity maps. One being About The Users and the other being The Responses Users Had of MyUmbrella. It was important to go through this process to meet our persona.
The Community Seeker
Combining Trends | These 6 people had some strong similarities when it came to consuming queer media. They all want to have a platform where they feel welcomed regardless of gender or sexuality. A website for everyone in the LGBTQ+ to hear stories they can relate to and to learn from other people's queer experiences.
Updating The Navigation
Current Navigation bar
Current Navigation | This current navigation has 7 menu items that users found confusing to understand. When you click "Writers" you are taken to an intake form page to sign up and become a writer. The "News" was not current news events and the About page was a redirect to the homepage. The "Blog" is outdated and usually sounds like one individual is contributing. It was taking our users too long to find a story to engage with and many of them said they would not return to the site again.
Our updated Navigation
Updated Navigation | We changed quite a bit to the navigation bar. You can find that Blog is now "Stories." The About page is changed to "Who we are." The Writers page became "Share your story." Lastly, News is now "Press" and we added an FAQ page due to user feedback.
Filter That content
Reorganizing Categories | In addition to redoing the navigation bar, we also focused on how stories are categorized. MyUmbrella had over 25 categories for less than 50 blog posts. We made 5 main categories and filtered content into those by card sorting.
Sketching + Wireframing
Sketch of New Home Page
Sketch of New Stories Page
Lo-fi Home Page Wireframe
Lo-fi Stories Page Wireframe
Visual Design
Style Tile|We kept the original logo for MyUmbrella and the original main color, which was requested by our client. We decided to steer away from loud pink tones and use a shade of peach instead. This would soften the design and also make MyUmbrella appeal to a broader audience. For the fonts our client wanted us to stick with san serifs, which we thought was best as well. Overall, we wanted to stick with today's UI trends to stay modern.
Website Prototype
Go through the Prototype yourself!
Also check out MyUmbrella to see the final design!
Takeaways | We put our design in front of a few users for a usability test. We improved the usability of the website going from a SUS score of 57 to 97. Our client Angie gave us amazing feedback with zero notes for us. The redesign is now live with some minor tweaks changes by the engineer.
From Client| "Dana is a wonderful designer who has a natural eye for what looks great. When she worked on my site, she who is great at listening to my must-haves and wish list items and delivered a project beyond what I could have imagined. I definitely feel like her natural curiosity and design aesthetic would be a value add to any team or company looking to utilize her services."
-Angie Williams (MyUmbrella CEO and Founder)
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