IxDA – Seattle, or the Interaction Design Association of Seattle, is a nonprofit organization that offers programming and events that cater to the skill development of design professionals and those in similar fields. Our team’s task was to learn about IxDA’s professional community to redesign their website, in which I took on the key role of designing flows for getting involved with the organization.
How might we evaluate and promote the IxDA Seattle website in order to help interaction design professionals find community and develop their professional goals?
The significance of IxDA's design community is cemented in an online directory that highlights mentors and mentees looking to connect with others and share their interests. Involvement with IxDA expands beyond just joining the organization's board, but spotlights opportunities within volunteering and building connections in design.
While website development is still in progress, our work prompted IxDA Seattle to launch their first design mentorship program in fall 2023.
The three ways members can get involved with IxDA are now clearly defined: being a board member, volunteering, or joining their general design community.
IxDA’s design community is now visible under “Connect with Community,” where professionals can choose to create a profile that showcases their interests, current role, and networking interests to find a mentor or mentee.
Adding a profile to IxDA’s community starts with a seamless sign-up process that only requires their name, a current job title, a profile photo, and networking interests.
#1: Learn about the goals and interests of IxDA members
What are the user-demographics of the design community that IxDA Seattle serves?
What do these users want from IxDA (the organization, website, events, etc.)?
#2: Understand the methods and practices that design professionals use to learn
How do interaction design professionals advance their skills in their field?
#3: Uncover usability issues present in IxDA’s platform
How does IxDA’s current platform address the needs and values of interaction design professionals?
Preliminary Literature Review
To get familiarized with our project, our team conducted literature reviews to further explore certain themes, or domains relevant to problem space.
Heuristic Evaluation
Another team member and I independently conducted heuristic evaluations on IxDA’s website to uncover potential usability issues prior to testing.
User Interviews & Thematic Analysis
Our team conducted 6 user interviews with both early career and experienced design professionals. Interviews were split into two parts: generative interview and a usability test. I assisted in analyzing our transcripts to develop a codebook to identify themes in our data.
🚀 Talking with peers as a learning opportunity and for career advancement
Design professionals often cited their peers as those whom they develop and learn new skills in design as well as helping them advance their career.
🗣️ Create a network to bridge the conversation
IxDA can create a strong network that helps facilitate these conversations for design professionals at all skill levels.
🤝 Desire for Genuine and Mutual Mentorship
All participants expressed the benefits of mentorship for professional development and design abilities; however, without a mutual understanding of trust and commitment, these relationships can fall through very easily.
👥 Spaces for Mentor/Mentee programs on the website
IxDA has an opportunity to explore designers’ interest in helping cultivate mentor/mentee relationships through programming and networks on their platform.
❌ UI Issues make it difficult to make out content
Inconsistent text sizing & low contrast images made it difficult for users to make out content on IxDA’s website.
🎨 Consistent Design System
Establishing a clear design system to keep elements consistent and easy for participants to read can greatly benefit IxDA’s website.
Finding #1: 🚀 Talking with peers as a learning opportunity and for career advancement
Design professionals often cited their peers as those whom they develop and learn new skills in design as well as helping them advance their career.
Rec #1: 🗣️ Create a network to bridge the conversation
IxDA can create a strong network that helps facilitate these conversations for design professionals at all skill levels.
Finding #2: 🤝 Desire for Genuine and Mutual Mentorship
All participants expressed the benefits of mentorship for professional development and design abilities; however, without a mutual understanding of trust and commitment, these relationships can fall through very easily.
Rec #2: 👥 Spaces for Mentor/Mentee programs on the website
IxDA has an opportunity to explore designers’ interest in helping cultivate mentor/mentee relationships through programming and networks on their platform.
Finding #3: ❌ UI Issues make it difficult to make out content
Inconsistent text sizing & low contrast images made it difficult for users to make out content on IxDA’s website
Rec #3: 🎨 Consistent Design System
Establishing a clear design system to keep elements consistent and easy for participants to read can greatly benefit IxDA’s website.
By analyzing our data, our team identified two main groups of users within IxDA’s community: design professionals early in their career and those who were experienced professionals. These junior and senior designers were formed into personas that acted as data-driven representations of the audience we focused on as we continued with the project.
Casey, the Junior Designer, values learning and growing in their field. They are eager to level up in their career and look to senior peers as mentors to aid them in their professional development.
Andi, the Senior Designer, is also passionate about learning new things in design, but she wants to learn more about how she can mentor others and uncover new trends in technology.
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Mapping out characteristics of the Junior Designer.
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Mapping out characteristics of the experienced Senior Designer.
Our team went through several rounds of rapid ideation to generate multiple features based on our research findings. Beginning with sticky note ideation and then crazy 8’s sketching, our group clustered our ideas into the following features:
Following our ideation sessions, we created a new sitemap detailing IxDA’s key pages and the information contained on each page. Below is the mapped-out experience of IxDA’s “Get Involved” pages.
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I gathered design inspiration by auditing existing community pages where design-related mentorship and networking were involved such as ADPList, BobaTalks, and even other IxDA organization websites. These sites gave me a greater grasp at what kinds of information design professionals share on their profiles, as well as understand what current conventions there are for designing such community pages.
To prepare for our first round of usability testing to gauge the functionality of our website, our team prepared a low-fidelity prototype of the IxDA Seattle website. While this first stage prototype did not have an established brand identity yet, my largest focus was on creating a grid system to ensure cohesion across the website as I moved closer into creating a design system for IxDA.
Our team conducted a total of 5 low-fidelity usability tests with junior level design professionals recruited via word-of-mouth.
While there were findings across other pages of the IxDA site, the “Get Involved” pages received the following feedback that we aimed to resolve in the next iteration of design.
Users founds it difficult to tell if they successfully created an account
Our updated design redirected users to new page with a visible “edit profile” button to indicate that a profile had been created. This replaced the confusing dialog that was previously used.
Looking for a mentor was straightforward, but participants felt unsure about reaching out to a member offline
Creating a mentorship program for IxDA Seattle was out of scope for our project; however, by highlighting the importance of IxDA’s role in facilitating these mentor/mentee relationships offline, the IxDA board designed their first ever Design Mentorship program in fall 2023.
While IxDA Seattle had a brand identity, they did not have a clear design system, which resulted in several UI consistencies during my initial design audit. As the lead Product Designer for my capstone team, I was in charge of creating components & documenting their use for the IxDA board to implement.
Creating components meant undergoing several rounds of iteration in terms of visual style and interaction. Below is a small snippet into some of these iterations for the primary and secondary buttons across IxDA’s website.
Crafting a design system is not a solo effort. Throughout our project, my team and I discussed different versions of components, and often found ourselves consolidating components that reoccurred across our prototypes.
Documentation is key! Prior to handing off our designs to the IxDA board, I documented our components to ensure clarity as to how each element was created, how they should appear, and how they should be used.
Once our design system was created & applied to our prototype, our team squeezed in 2 additional user tests with a junior and then a senior level design professionals. While we could not recruit additional participants in this limited time, we wanted to ensure that our high-fidelity prototype was met with feedback from design professionals prior to handing it off to the IxDA team. Below is the following feedback I implemented for the "Get Involved" section of the IxDA site.
Both participants were confused whether becoming a mentor in IxDA meant becoming a member. Once presented the Community page, both participants hesitated on what membership meant in IxDA as well as found difficulty understanding the primary call to action on this page. The following changes were added to mitigate the confusion:
To squeeze in over a dozen deliverables into a 10-week project would be an understatement. As the team member who took charge of handling our deadline schedules and communications with our project sponsor, seeing the final outcome of our project gave a big smile to my face. Of course, looking back, there were several challenges and learnings that we faced, but I couldn't be more grateful to have ended my undergrad with such an amazing team!
Go Team Colorful! (PS. Shout out to the Photobooth Widget in Figma!)
