JOINLU
Bridging the connection between academic experts and industry professionals.
ROLE
UX Consultant
COLLABORATORS
Emma Peterson, UX Designer
Ally Vern, UX Designer
Geni Kapelonis, UX Designer
TOOLS
Figma, Adobe Photoshop, Adobe Illustrator, Microsoft Suites
DURATION
Aug 2023 - May 2024
OVERVIEW
JOINLU is an Ann Arbor based expert intelligence platform dedicated to connecting experts in highly specialized fields to individuals and organizations who are looking to solve highly specialized problems.
Providing a valuable service for those looking for expertise on a specific, highly academic or industrial problem, it is vital ensuring the journey before and while with JOINLU intuitive and easy to navigate.
Over the span of nine months, I worked alongside a team of UX Designers and closely with stakeholders at JOINLU to redesign and improve their website.
BUSINESS PROBLEM
Starting from stratch.
Prior to meeting with JOINLU, we knew that what we were tasked to do was redesign the website. However, we were missing the how, when, and most importantly, why.
Upon meeting them, we immediately drew up the business problem statement.
BUSINESS PROBLEM STATEMENT
JOINLU, an expert intelligence platform, needed a redesign to ensure an intuitive and easy-to-navigate user experience, enhancing the connection between experts and those seeking specialized knowledge.
TIMELINE
What is the mother of all success for a UX Designer?
I'd argue the answer to that is gaining some foresight by planning ahead.
Completely redesigning a website in a nine month timeline was a daunting tasks, but where would the fun be without a good old challenge?
CONTEXTUAL INQUIRY & INTERVIEWS
Our first step was to gather users to gain insight on their initial
thoughts of the current website. Based on our understanding, we
recruited participants who met the criteria of either having:
1. Extensive (5+ years) experience in academia, specifically in an engineering field.
2. Extensive experience (5+ years) in an engineering industry.
Let's get to talking!
Through three contextual inquiries, we uncovered the navigation challenges users faced on the JOINLU website. Reaching information saturation, we then shifted to discovery interviews, delving into users’ first impressions, motivations, and preferred alternatives.
Finding structure in the chaos.
We coded data from contextual inquiries and interviews, pinpointing user needs based on behavior. Using color-coded sticky notes, we grouped related insights to uncover recurring themes and patterns as shown in Figure 2.1.
Below marks our findings, structured user behavior and what we should do with that information.
Users look for consulting groups' past successes.
Prioritize previous experiences and success stories.
Users activtely seeking areas to show strong reputation, transparency, clear pricing, and efficiency.
Place components that encourage loyalty at the forefront.
Users complained about lack of information on website as well as confusion.
Information needs to be purposeful and clear.
Users frustrated with vague communication and consultants' lack of initative.
Use visuals to ensure user and business connections.
TARGET USERS
To dive deeper into who specific made up our target audience, we needed to make it clear the who, why, and how questions.
What group makes up the most of our users?
Academic experts and industry companies.
Why are our users seeking this service?
To give or gain consulting help in engineering fields.
How are users accessing the product?
Interacting with the website on desktop view.
COMPETITIVE ANALYSIS
Filter and sort.
Our next step was to see what areas were industry standard and see what parts we should prioritize first over others.
OPPORTUNITY STATEMENT
Third time's a charm.
Now was my favorite part of the first phase of any project - we determined an overarching business problem, gathered valuable user data, and compared amongst an array of competitors. It is time to find our lucky charm to get the design phase going: the opportunity statement.
OPPORTUNITY STATEMENT
Revamping JOINLU’s website to include detailed service explanations, user-friendly navigation, and transparent communication will elevate user satisfaction and streamline the journey from exploration to engagement.
USER FLOW
Finally! Some pencil strokes onto the blank canvas of this project.
The user flow diagram laid the groundwork for the Mid-Fidelity prototype, revealing key interactions and user pathways.
UX REQUIREMENTS
Ranking new features by importance.
Working with a team required us to sit down and discuss which features we wanted to add in, which were most important, and which ones could be recommendations for JOINLU.
MID-FI PROTOTYPE
Since there was a pre-existing website, we moved straight to the mid-fi prototype to ensure that we would start off our design phase by retaining as many components as we could. This benefited JOINLU by enabling an easier transition for when they implement our design.
THE SOLUTION
Let's first bring a magnifying glass in to really dissect each of the user-centered design decisions.
Have a go at the prototype!
INTERACTION MAP
This interaction map shows a high level view, accounting for all of the interactions that users could do to engage with the website.
USABILITY TESTING
Checking to see if the numbers sync up with our designs.
We ran informal usability tests to gauge if users understood JOINLU and could easily contact the right representatives. Observations and notes helped refine our design.
KEY FINDINGS
From 24 user feedbacks:
67%
scrolled to the bottom of pages100%
read through the statistics58%
clicked on CTA on Client/Expert page92%
used the new search function
RECOMMENDATIONS
Handing it off to JOINLU.
Now that the main bulk of our project was done, we wanted to add in some extra notes for JOINLU to consider as they move forward with the implementation phase in their rebrand. Below are the main ones we recommended for them.
Maintain mobile & desktop consistency
With time constraints and a client focus on desktop, mobile design was not included. A dedicated team will be essential to translate the desktop design into an effective mobile layout.
Accessibility checkers
Though we designed with accessibility in mind, continuous attention is key. Tools like WAVE and Axe DevTools can help ensure no accessibility details are missed.
Alpha beta testing
Internal alpha tests will align the team on the new design, while beta tests with users will offer crucial insights. Additional testing after development remains vital for refinement.
