UI/UX DESIGNER & RESEARCHER
HURI Russia's War Against Ukraine Project
A place to support the Ukrainian war effort through donations, volunteerism, preservation, information sharing, and combating fake news.
UX Designer
Role
Timeline
3 Months
Toolkit
Invision
Figma
Jamboard
CampusPress
Summary
This redesign project for HURI, a client devoted to supporting the Ukrainian war effort, aimed to enhance the website's information architecture, navigation, and branding. HURI's mission to promote donations, volunteerism, and combating fake news on the war, played a crucial role in shaping the new site.
Part of this redesign included a comprehensive content inventory, a content audit, content migration to a new CMS (CampusPress), and digital accessibility training for the client. Very little user research was conducted for this study, so our team relied on the information we gathered from various client stakeholders.
With little resources, myself, the Lead UX Designer, and Senior Project Manager worked in tandem on this redesign project to create a user-centric design that portrayed the serious nature of the organization's mission.
Client Goals
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Provide accurate information about Ukraine.
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Highlight effective organizations that are supporting Ukraine and Ukrainians during the war and ways people in the West can get involved through donations or volunteer work.
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Raise the institute's profile.
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Ensure the war remains on the public and politicians radars in the West.
User Groups
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Scholars
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Students
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Faculty
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General public interesting in Ukraine
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Ukrainians
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Journalists/Media
Information Architecture
We held several sessions with the client, reworking HURI's IA to improve the users' navigation experience using Jamboard. This includes the site's primary and secondary navigation.
This is a Jam board from one of many session with the client where our team worked on revising the HURI website's IA.
Content Plan
The team invested significant effort in developing a comprehensive content plan in collaboration with the client. This content plan served as a crucial guide throughout the development of the new website. Through meticulous analysis, the team documented each piece of content, assessing its relevance, accuracy, and timeliness. Content that required updates was identified, ensuring that the new website would provide the most current and accurate information to visitors. Similarly, unnecessary or out-of-date content was flagged for removal, streamlining the user experience and eliminating clutter. The content plan acted as a roadmap, ensuring that the website's information architecture and design would be aligned with the client's goals and objectives.
Wireframing & Prototyping
Wireframes & Lo-fi Prototypes
Throughout this redesign project, both myself and the lead UX designer collaborated closely to create multiple wireframes and high-fidelity prototypes. After gathering the necessary content and IA, we focused on creating designs that were user-centric, while also fulfilling the client's specific requirements and emphasizing their mission related to the Ukrainian war.
Despite the limited user information available, we leveraged our expertise and industry best practices to craft designs that resonated with the target audience. Our iterative design process involved frequent feedback sessions with the client, ensuring their goals and objectives were incorporated effectively. By striking a balance between user-centered design principles and the client's mission, we aimed to create a website that not only met the needs of the users but also showcased HURI's commitment to supporting the Ukrainian war effort.
High-fi Prototypes
The ideation process allowed us to explore various design solutions and iterate on them to create a final product that successfully merged user-centricity with the client's mission-driven focus.
The new navigation and page layouts featured what HURI has done to gain perspective and understanding on Russia's war on Ukraine. The new website will also supported new pages such as “News Roundup”, “Voices from Ukraine” and other featured content. The scope and breadth of the content largely remained the same as on the current site. However, it is now presented in a more visual and engaging way.
