Research & Persona Development
The first step was to figure out who our users were, what were their characteristics and aspirations when interacting with WWF as a brand.
Luckily WWF had a wealth of information about their users which allowed us to search for common themes and need states that the website should address. Including aspects such as device usage and spending habits.
User Journeys & IA
After we gathered the users needs we then looked at how they would interact with the site. Any doors that they needed opening and where the pain points were most prevalent. This helped us form an improved information architecture - as well as some card sorting excercises with WWF.
We created a user journey for each persona and a balance scorecard to go alongside it to ensure that we were prioritising the right tasks.
Wireframing & Prototyping
Now we had our needs and the user journeys that are being taken it was then important to plan how we could improve each page interaction throughout the journey for our target persona.
This involved creating low fidelity sketches, which then turned into a higher fidelity prototype using InVision to collate feedback from our stakeholders.
We also had to ensure that anything we proposed was also feasible in the current tech stack. This involved exposing the prototype to a third party backend development agency early on.
Design & Build
After the prototype was finished it was time to move on to the interaction and visual design piece. Working with my team of designers and developers we were able to articulate key components in the wireframes that could be utilised as a living style guide later on.
From here we started a design research task, acknowledging the brand guidelines but also ensuring the UX maintained its integrity whilst creating the UI design.
We used the same tool for design feedback as we did for the wireframe prototype as we found stakeholders were receptive of working with it and it also allowed us to create an MVP designed journey quickly.
Alongside the design piece my team and I created a "Living style guide" aptly named Bamboo. The creation was to allow the WWF internal development team and their third party agencies to be able to reuse components from the shiny new website.
Working with Dan on the redesign of the WWF website was an absolute pleasure. Dan's thorough knowledge of audience insight, usability and UX as a whole, made a world of difference to the resulting product. He and his team were able to take us through the entire process - all the way from developing user journeys (based on our user personas), to delivering working prototypes. The site - now a year old - is out-performing the old site in all of its key metrics, including donations which have increased dramatically.