Department of Labor Website Redesign

My Role

Design & Research

Company

Department of Labor

Timeframe

3 weeks

group work

UI Design

Web Redesign

UX Research

Prototyping

The Problem:

The Department of Labor's website is overwhelming and challenging for users to navigate, resulting in difficulties finding the necessary information. Users were struggling to locate the required resources and relevant content due to poor usability and an overly complex interface.

Proto Persona

Our Proto-Persona is middle-aged blue collar worker. He has strong work ethic, but burnt out at work. He knows Unions improving workers conditions, but has little information about unionizing.

User Path

With the proto-persona in place moved to creating the User Path.

Heuristic Evaluation Key Takeaways & Annotation

The webpage is loading quickly, all links are clear and follow conventions.
The homepage is overwhelming, text-heavy, and hard to follow. Purpose is not clear right away.
Search button, contact information is easy to find and all icons are universally understood.
Navigation bar headers are small and not visible. Breadcrumbs are tiny and hard to notice, but straightforward.
Web structure and all icons are consistent from one page to another.

Usability Test of Existing Website

Objective:

To see how users navigate the DOL website and find resources to learn more about unions and how to unionize.
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Task 1: Find Out the Advantages of Forming a Union.
Task 2: Find Out What Others Say About Being in a Union.
Task 3: Find information on how to form a Union.

Prioritization Matrix

Topics/resources should be recategorized for clarity.
Webpage's content should be streamlined to avoid choice overload by presenting only essential information.
Excessive scrolling has been identified as a concern, necessitating a rethinking
of the UI.

Moodboard

Moodboard allowed us to generate ideas and provided valuable guidance throughout designing process.

Site Map

Card sorting was crucial in creating the new site map.

User will see content in smaller chunks to enhance findability
Search bar will be more prominent visually as users’ main tool of navigation
Spanish resources will be located at the top
Content will be streamlined on homepage to reduce scroll fatigue.

Lo-Fi Prototype

From our initial User Path, new Site Map and Sketches I have designed our first digital iteration of lo-fi wireframes.

Lo-Fi Usability Test Key Takeaways

Users didn’t use breadcrumbs to navigate, but some stated it was useful to orient themselves within the DOL site.

Users stated feeling they were able to navigate the page easily when asked to complete tasks.
Users tended to take less time to complete tasks compared to previous usability testing.

Topics drop down is still overwhelming in terms of amount of content in navigation.
Users not always sure of where to find web pages as some copy is not easily understood.

Design System/Style Tile

The main blue color of the DOL website was retained while incorporating accent colors to add depth and character, maintaining the official essence of the webpage.