UIC Website Redesign

Process

take a peek at my latest exploration

process details

UIC Website Redesign

Introduction: Why Redesign the UIC Website?

Since the organization’s inception, UIC has leveraged a simple GoDaddy website to share programming and event details with our community. With the continued growth of our community programming offerings, the addition of our cultural center in midtown Manhattan, and the approach of our 5-year anniversary, the team recognized it was time to overhaul the website.

The primary goals of this redesign are to create a scalable structure that can support the organization’s continuous growth and ensure that the community can easily access resources. Simultaneously, we aim to deliver these resources through a modern and visually stunning design that reflects UIC’s identity and future vision.

Research & Discovery

During the research phase, I held several check-ins with UIC’s Co-Founder and Executive Director, Sutton King, to understand her vision and goals for the updated website. We reviewed the websites of other Indigenous organizations and nonprofits, such as Illuminative, to gather inspiration and start building a mood board. It quickly became clear that we needed to reimagine the website’s structure to accommodate UIC’s ongoing and future growth.

After co-creating the mood board and establishing our central goals, I expanded it further with additional examples and closely analyzed the existing UIC website. One major pain point identified was the need for a rebuilt navigation system. While the original navigation structure worked well when the organization was smaller, it now feels cumbersome and overly complex. This issue became even more apparent when compared to the sleek, user-friendly examples from our research. Improving navigation and organizational clarity quickly became a top priority.

After my review, I brought the team together to share their feedback and pain points with the existing website:

  1. The Communications Manager noted that external press had difficulty finding our team page
  2. Our Office, Events, and Cultural Program Manager emphasized the need for clearer donor information, including:
    1. How small-dollar donors can contribute?
    2. How corporate donors can get involved?
    3. How organizations can partner with us to support our work?

After gathering the team’s feedback, we reviewed all the pain points together and reached a shared understanding of the key issues to tackle with the new design. With the pain points and focus areas clearly mapped out, we had a solid direction to guide the website’s reorganization and structure.

Defining the Design Challenges

Throughout this process, the following core challenges were identified:

  1. Improving the structure of the website navigation
  2. Reducing the number of pages listed in the top level of the navigation menu
  3. Creating a website format that can handle an expanding number of projects and programmatic offerings
  4. Clarifying where key information about the organization can be found, such as team details
  5. Clarifying how external donors can support UIC

User-Centered Approach & Prototyping

To ensure the redesign met the needs of both UIC’s community and stakeholders, I began with sketches based on our mood board and reviewed them with Sutton. From there, I created high-fidelity prototypes, refining the design through several iterations. The new design language was influenced by two primary elements: design observations I made while working in the psychedelic plant medicine space with Sutton, and the evolving design language I had been crafting for UIC’s marketing materials.

These high-fidelity screens focused on key page archetypes—such as the home page, team page, main content displays, sub-category displays, and text-only displays—each derived from the site’s newly organized sitemap. These archetypes serve as frameworks while I build out each page in Framer, providing a cohesive and scalable foundation for the entire site.

Currently, I am working to bring the site vision to life in Framer as part of my contribution to UIC’s 5-year anniversary this October. The full Framer buildout is expected to be completed by Fall 2024, providing UIC with a modern, scalable platform that reflects our evolving identity and supports the continued growth of our community offerings.

photos