Project Duration: 3 months
Client: Wildjoy
Role: UX Designer
Background
Wildjoy is an Arizona-based platform that inspires people to explore the outdoors and discover joy through adventure. It offers resources like hand-drawn adventure guides, a Wildjoy Map app, and community events, helping users uncover Arizona's hidden gems and plan memorable experiences. The Wildjoy Usability Recommendations project evaluated how easily users can navigate the Wildjoy travel blog
60 %
Increase in the success rate of task completion on the website after the redesign
The website's navigation inconsistencies and design elements were not intuitive, leading to confusion among users.
PROBLEM
This problem was exacerbated by poor visual contrasts and non-standard design practices, further alienating users and detracting from the site's overall usability. The necessity for redesigning became apparent to ensure that the website could effectively meet user needs and enhance their experience, making it easy and enjoyable to plan vacations.
Research to understand user pain points and translate the findings into design changes
GOAL
Evaluate and address the usability and effectiveness of the Wildjoy travel blog to meet user needs for planning adventurous and family-oriented vacations in Arizona
Conduct in-depth UX research and applied user-centered design principles to improve website usability.
DESIGN PROCESS
Evaluation of the Wildjoy website using Jakob Nielsen's 10 general principles for interaction design.
Conducted user interviews through Zoom and observed 5 participants as they completed tasks
Created Google Forms for user surveys and gathered feedback from 11 participants
ISSUES & RECOMMENDATIONS
Used Figma to create wireframes and interactive prototypes to design and test
Analyzed the key pain points and brainstormed possible solutions, prioritizing fixes based on user feedback
ISSUE 1: Participants were unable to locate Hiking information from the homepage
Occurrence: Usability testing.
Severity: Blocker
Occurrence: The issue arose during usability testing and heuristic evaluation
Severity: Major
Quantitative
4 out of 5 participants struggled to locate hiking trails from the home page
Quantitative
2 out of 5 participants couldn't see the search button due to low contrast
Qualitative
2 out of 5 Participants said that they didn't expect to find hiking information under the blog section
Website
ISSUE 2: Participants found the information categories to differ from what was presented in the main navigation
Prototype
Occurrence: The issue arose during Scenario 2 and Task 1 of the usability testing.
Severity: Blocker
Quantitative
4 out of 5 Participants said that the content on the website was not organized
Qualitative
4 out of 5 users found the information categories to be inconsistent.
Website
Quantitative
Participants expressed a preference for the term "shop" instead of "Merc," which was used on the homepage.
Prototype
Website
Prototype
ISSUE 3: White font overlaid on light images results in fonts that are visually invisible, severely compromising readability on the shopping page
GRADE: 100.8% (A+)
USABILITY RECOMMENDATION REPORT: The full report (attached here) summarizes the testing methodology
PROFESSOR FEEDBACK:
Future Scope
Evidence of Accomplishment
Assessing the website’s accessibility using WCAG guidelines
ACCESSABILITY AUDIT
I assessed the website's accessibility using online accessibility checkers and adhering to the success criteria outlined in the Web Content Accessibility Guidelines (WCAG).
the Wildjoy website partially conforms with the Web Content Accessibility Guidelines (WCAG) 2.1 at the Level AA standard. This indicates that while significant strides have been made in aligning its digital content with essential Level A and Level AA guidelines, areas for improvement remain to achieve full compliance. Until these issues are fully resolved, the site cannot claim full conformance with WCAG 2.1 Level AA standards