Sankofa healing studio

OVERVIEW

IA redesign for Non-Profit Organization

Sankofa is a psycho therapy studio based in Philadelphia. Their customers are mostly incarcerated women of color with tech level that of a 5th grader. So it was of extreme importance to make the website as straightforward and user friendly as far as possible.

BUSINESS OBJECTIVE

1. Reduce in person FAQ calls
2. Improve UX/UI of the website
3. Reduce appointment booking time
4. Reflect the studios ambience

MY ROLE

Information Architect, UX/UI designer

Myself and 4 other UXD's redesigned the information architecture , user flow and UI of the existing website

PROJECT TYPE

UX Volunteering project

TIMELINE

6 Weeks

✦ THE user PROBLEM

Difficulty in booking appointment

Users couldn't find the button to book an appointment in the website

We conducted findability study participating 2 UX designers and they themselves struggled in completing the task. All of them thought they were successful but both of them were unsuccessful in booking the appointment.

✦ SOLUTION

Placing the obvious front and centre

The old home screen was more of a landing page which had irrelevant dat for the end user. The confusing navigation and data hierarchy added more cognitive load to the therapy patients. The new design addressed this issue head on.

✦ THE PROCESS

How did I get there

We started with content audit to understand lay of the land. This was followed by usability testing of the existing website and several design solutions and iteration to address the core issue.

✦ Contextual enquiry

Understanding the context

With a 2 hour long tour an one on one conversation with 2 therapists, we grasped a good idea about the essense of the studio, recording the stakeholder pain-points.

✦ who is the user?

Patient's Story

Storyboard Persona explaining what Soulful Sarah has been through and where she comes from.

✦ WHATS THE PROBLEM?

Patients and the stakeholder says...

Data from 4 users were collected in a confidential setting given the private nature of psychotherapy users.

Usually I can't find the appointment button. I usually call them on the phone for all inquiries.

It's difficult to differentiate between what is for patients and what is meant for other therapists

I need to check the insurance claim even before setting foot in the building. Cannot afford to take chances.

✦ Journey map

Soulful Sarah's journey

Radiant Rachel goes through a lot of emotions, decisions, ups and downs, all while simply trying to book an appointment. Let's see what she goes through.

✦ Audit

Lay of the land

We audited the existing information architecture and make a complex excel sheet to understand how users make way finding decisions.

✦ what is the real problem

The 5 why method

Navigation and the layout of existing website

✦ Current Information architecture

Current website structure

Navigation and the layout of existing website

✦ New Information architecture

Card Sorting, brain storming and dot voting

Designing new information architecture and new features, all while preserving existing capabilities of the website.

✦ Sketching

Hand-Drawn Paper Prototypes

Rapid designs, rapid testing, rapid changes

✦ foming the surface

Low-fidelity wireframes

Digitalizing the refined paper prototypes

✦ Style guide

A simple design standard all accross

✦ The surface

High-fidelity wireframes

Production ready version of the website with the most fidelity, intuitive UI and a cohesive user experience.

✦ Usability testing

Rapid Testing

We hired couple of students around the campus and asked them to complete couple of tasks.
1. Find "Schedule appointment" feature
2. Schedule one for a particular date and time
3. Rate the easiness of using the website.

9/10 Users found the website easy to use, while successfully completing their tasks

✦ LEARNINGS

Self reflection

What I leaned from volunteering, working with a minority in healthcare sector

What I learned

Be respectful of each others personal space. It's extremely important to make sure that users are feeling safe to make them talk about their pain points.
Non profits runs on grants, so be prepared to tweak project to fit that business need.

Changes

Incorporate insurance checking as soon as possible. It will be the next milestone in the product development lifecycle.

✦ One team, one dream

The team

Previous Project

Zenzone

Meditate like playing a game

Next Project

Ballot Movies

Cinema redefined

Sanofa

Let's build something great together