Overview
The League of Women Voters Chicago (LWV- Chicago) is a citizens organization that has fought since 1920 to improve citizens access to representation in government.
The LWV- Chicago is interested in finding a way to increase engagement on digital properties in order to allow constituents to express support for causes and to tell their own stories in their own words under the umbrella of the LWV-Chicago.
Project Information
Team: Kamran Khan, Allison Steffens, Sierra Cheatham
Design Practices: contextual inquiry, user interviews, affinity mapping, developing personas, site mapping, user flow, paper sketches, wireframing, digital prototyping
Timeframe: 2 week sprint
Tools: Sketch, inVision, paper and pen
Role
Conducted user interviews
Synthesized research
Developed wireframe prototypes
Conducted digital prototype tests
Major Learning
That multiple rounds of user interviews are sometimes needed to get to the heart of user pain points. Sometimes the initial questions lead to more insightful questions rather than immediate actionable insights for design.
That every member of a team has valuable insights and skill sets and that by identifying these strengths and trusting them we can work smart and achieve more progress, especially under limited time constraints.
That pivoting the focus of a design after user testing feedback is not a hurdle in front of the solution but the only real path to solve users pain points.
The Problem
Who are the League and how are their stories told?
The LWV- Chicago is a venerable and influential institution but our team was unsure of how aware users were of their continued existence and mission. In order to understand the user’s familiarity and experience with the LWV-Chicago we conducted a digital contextual inquiry and compiled a competitive analysis.
The Competitive Analysis
Our team began our problem solving journey by analyzing what features other comparable websites offered in order for us to understand what users have come to expect when they interact with political organizations online.
Results from Competitive Analysis
Most political sites have similar functionality regarding user engagement
Generally allow for newsletter signups, direct donations, links to partnership sites.
No site that was analyzed allowed for users to sign in or register on their page except for the LWV-Chicago.
Takeaways from Competitive Analysis
The league would be well served to provide a method of digital social engagement to allow users to share their passions and their stories in order to strengthen the bonds of the user community.
The Contextual Inquiry
User’s were assigned the task to register an account for the LWV-Chicago and explore the site.
Users expressed frustration with how they were intended to sign in and register
There were many options that all sounded alike, ie: join, log in, register, subscribe. Even donating had its own separate onboarding process
When users were able to successfully create an account and log in were surprised at how little functionality a profile provided. Users were not sure what the point was of even having an account.
Strengths
The current landing page does a very good job of directing users towards information about the LWV-Chicago itself and the issues they support.
Opportunities
Users should have a clearly defined purpose in mind in order for them to register for an account.
The Interviews, Round 1
All the questions…
Questions that prompted a strong user response:
What factors lead to you engaging in political discussion, either in person or online?
When someone tells you a story, what makes it engaging to you?
What do you think of when you think about the League of Women Voters?
Nine users were interviewed ranging in age from 24-65 years old
Users interviewed identified as both men and women.
Interview questions focused on social media usage, level of political engagement and user awareness of the LWV-Chicago.
“Everything’s so corrupt and everyone’s so afraid”
Users are passionate about learning about policy and taking action due to their perception of the current political climate.
Fear and anger are the emotions most mentioned when users spoke about their motivations regarding the usage of online forms of political communication.
“I’m in a bubble... Tend not to discuss politics with people I don’t share values with.”
Users feel that the internet is a great tool for research but that it tends to reflect the echo chamber that they fear they live in.
Users are apprehensive about discussing politics with people whose values they don’t share in part due to fear of reprisal.
“I love the idea of the league of women voters...I guess I could look them up and join, but I would be unsure as to what their agenda might be.”
Users are not aware of what the LWV-Chicago current political positions are.
Even users who were not aware of what the LWV-Chicago was expressed a positive impressions of them and would like to know more.
Affinity Map
User Interview Round 1 Takeaways
The main takeaway was that users were uncomfortable sharing personal stories with people they did not have pre-existing close relationships with.
This contradicted certain assumptions our team made regarding users interaction with social media. Due our perception of the ubiquitousness of social media we made the false assumption that users would love an opportunity to share their own stories online in a safe place.
After taking a deep look at the user interview data it became clear that users did not feel a need to share stories on social media but instead they universally expressed an intangible sense of disconnection from other individuals in real life.
Users spoke of being interested in raising their level of activism and learning more about policy and other’s citizens opinions but they were not inclined to pursue their curiosity through social media engagement.
The Interviews Round 2
Five users were interviewed ranging in age from 31-62 years old
Users interviewed identified as both men and women.
Interview questions focused on the user’s sense of creative expression and how and who they feel comfortable telling personal stories to.
Questions that prompted a strong user response:
How do you express yourself creatively?
Who do you feel comfortable telling your stories to?
Have you ever been made uncomfortable by sharing?
““I feel like sometimes stories about my life make people uncomfortable if I tell them too soon.””
Users felt they were only safe talking to people they knew in real life and that it takes shared interests or shared experiences to get to know someone.
Users favorite ways to express themselves don’t always translate easily to the online word -- cooking, personal style, expression of personality through conversation.
We learned that users felt most comfortable around family and friends and did not feel they had many opportunities to build new close relationships, especially as they got older.
We came to the conclusion that instead of building a social storytelling platform for the LWV-Chicago that users would be better served through the build out of a profile creation and shared interest/policy meetup platform integrated into the existing website.
The Persona
Persona deliverable created by Sierra Cheatham from research synthesis data.
Our persona represents the key characteristics of what we believe the user data suggested was our primary user.
The Problem…and the Solution
Problem Statement
As a curious and mature voter, I need a way to connect with others in my community. I would like to engage in person with individuals with shared interests and to become more politically active.
Solution Statement
We believe that by redesigning and extending the community functionality of the existing website, we will encourage in-person storytelling and political action under the umbrella of the League.
The User Flow
Our user flow reflects the user tasks that we built our MVP for. It involves the user creating a profile, browsing curated events and making a “connection” with another like minded user. After they have “connected” they were to create an event to host and invite other users to.
User flow deliverable designed by Sierra Cheatham
The Design Workshop Process
Paper To Digital
Paper Prototype sketches by Allison Steffens, Wireframes by Kamran Khan
Mid-Fidelity to High-Fidelity Wireframes
Mid-fidelity Wireframes by Kamran Khan and Allison Steffens, High Fidelity Design by Sierra Cheatham
The Prototype
Digital Prototype created by Allison Steffens and Kamran Khan
Digital Prototype Testing Takeaways
Button and font sizes were sometimes inconsistent causing consternation for the user. Our team updated elements to labeling and user profile page layout to address user confusion and to unify the layout style.
Clarified language on buttons (e.g. publish vs. save)
Increased text and button sizes (14 > 16pt for buttons)
Changed user flow (User first views event, then creates her own)
Added “My Events” to user profile/dashboard
Digital Prototype Testing
The Future
Build Platform for Organizers
Expand user-base to other non-profit organizations and their membership in order to allow the organizations to create a more interconnected community.
Explore More Social Networking Functions
Enhance the abilities for users to create groups and networks while maintaining the balance of privacy and safety that users demand and deserve.
Mobile-responsive design
Adapt the site to be fully mobile responsive to allow users to check events and details in a way that is optimised for their mobile viewing.