My main goal with this project was to take something that is currently functional and familiar (and meaningful to me) and improve the information architecture.

This is an ongoing project! This page is a detailed walk through the process of redesigning the Home and About pages. Here’s a link to the most recent version of a combined splash page.

Original

Looking for info in all the wrong places

People already in the SAPgh community are probably connected to SA through Facebook. The people who are navigating to the website probably want specific information:

1. What is this organization?

2. What does it do?

3. When and where is the next meeting?

4. Are they active?

Heads up: I’ll refer to these later on!

It’s a start

In reference to the questions above, this design would improve a couple of things. First, the tagline “A Secular Community That Celebrates Life” is more prominent (question 1). The location and time of the next Assembly (question 3) is at the bottom of the “About” page, which is an improvement on the original. Additionally, by reorganizing the layout, I was able to present the same information in a more readable fashion. Here are some examples: The nav bar at the top displays the same information as the sidebar in the original, but in a cleaner way that takes up less screen space and doesn’t look so cluttered.

The next version (in Sketch) will include a couple of changes: Questions 2 and 4 above are still unanswered in the first two pages. Also, the splash page has a button to enter the site. It’s nice that it says “Welcome, Neighbor,” but that’s a barrier between users and the information they’re seeking. For the next version, I’ll make it a single scrollable page.

A few nice things about this version

If the user is not looking for a specific destination in the nav bar, simply scrolling down will give them more information about the organization. I also really like the social proof at the bottom of each page, addressing Question 2 above. The first conveys that Jess really likes the organization while giving the user some information about what to expect at their first assembly.

I really like the updated “About” section. The original home/about combo page contained SAPGH’s guiding principles, but they were a bit buried in text. In the new version they are prominently displayed and described. The second social proof, this time from the president of SAPGH, showcases what our members can contribute, and how it can feel to contribute to this community. This quote leads into the Community section in the newest version.

I did choose to move Question 4’s answer to the Community section in the form of a blog post preview slideshow, because I thought it fit more naturally there. (See the most recent version here.)