ARIES
About this project
ARIES is an Entrepreneurship platform connecting small business owners with funding and mentorship.
Role:
UX Researcher, Interactive Strategist and Project Manager
3 months
Background
ARIES is an entrepreneurship incubator established by Centennial College. As the ARIES organization grew, so did their online presence. However, ARIES lacked a cohesive online identity. Furthermore, the user experience and content on their website were not relevant or engaging for the users.
Objective
Conduct primary and secondary research and identify opportunities to streamline ARIES’ UX in order to meet user needs and expectations.
Process & Journey
To prepare the research and redding plan, we first initiated a discussion with the client to gain an understanding of the following information:
What is the main purpose of the ARIES website?
What do you want the users to accomplish once they are on the ARIES website?
purpose
The purpose of this step is to gain an understanding of what the user journey is as per the client. In the later stages of the project, this information served as a reference point to assess if the current design/content was meeting the user’s needs as per the journey.
We wanted to understand common practices in online engagement for similar organizations, as this would allow us to see how ARIES fared in the market.
We conducted a comparison audit of ARIES’ direct competitors to analyze the user experience and onsite content. The competitive analysis was helpful in determining key functionality and content gaps in ARIES when compared against similar websites.
competitive scorecard
The competitive analysis revealed that ARIES was missing valuable onsite communication support, relevant information pertaining to programs and funding eligibility, as well as an intuitive navigation system.
A UX audit encompassing current state analysis and heuristic analysis was carried out. The UX audit was helpful in evaluating the effectiveness of the current ARIES website and identifying user pain points in the current design.
current state analysis
The UX audit revealed that unplanned content, lack of central navigation, and inconsistent design contributed to user confusion.
Based on the findings from the competitive analysis and UX audit, it became clear that gaps and inconsistency in the content was adding to user frustration. A comprehensive content audit was conducted to identify these gaps and inconsistencies.
With a clear picture of the missing components in ARIES’ user experience, the next step was to take it back to the users. A series of surveys and interviews were conducted to get a better understanding of the users’ expectations and needs.Â
purpose
- user preferences for online engagement
- motivations and hesitations for interacting with ARIES
- content themes that were deemed important and necessary as per the users
Insights from the above research-informed user personas were used to outline the content and functionality requirements from the users’ perspective.
Findings from the above research were used to create a revised sitemap for ARIES. The purpose of the new sitemap was to optimize information architecture such that content sections and topical information relevant to user needs were prioritized and easy to find.
In addition to user research, internal workshops with the team were conducted to brainstorm design and functional components for the new ARIES website. As a part of the workshop, I focused on narrowing down a primary user journey for prospective ARIES applicants and prototyping a design solution that would satisfy the user requirements.
next steps
With a revised sitemap and HiFi prototype, the next steps would be to evaluate the effectiveness of the redesign. Phase two of the project should include prototype testing as well as additional research to expand the functionality of the ARIES website to include post-application management.
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