Tools
Screener Survey | Stakeholder Interview
| User Interview | Affinity Mapping | Competitive Analysis | Persona | User Flow Heuristics Evaluation | Usability Test | Rapid Prototyping | Wireframing (Sketch) | Front-End Developer Handoff (Zeplin)
Pathfinder Labs, LLC, is a veteran resources recommendation web service, where veterans help each other transition from a military to a civilian lifestyle.
I led the team of three designers in a scrum to deliver a redesign of the website in two weeks' time.
How might we help Pathfinder Labs, LLC
clearly communicate its
value and gather reviews?
We revised the onboarding and clarified how participation helps other veterans find more accurate results.
High Effort
natural language processing
algorithm needs
reviews with >70 words
veterans don't trust government services to protect their online privacy
Lack of Motivation
users didn't understand how writing reviews helped anyone
01 DISCOVER
Making Pathfinder Labs more streamlined depended on research from three perspectives:
1. User interview
2. Stakeholder interview
3. Current website evaluation
To evaluate our client’s existing website, we asked 6 users to complete the task of signing up and submitting a review for an organization, and how they felt about each page. Everyone was able to complete the tasks intuitively, but none understood how writing reviews helped their community.
During our competitive analysis, we found that Pathfinder Labs was indeed a one-of-a-kind service that provided fitting results for veterans.
Left - Competitive Matrix, Competitive Features and Layouts Analysis
WHO?
By interviewing 4 veterans on their experience transitioning from rigid military routines into civilian life, we discovered that most were only able to escape their endless trial-and-error testing organizations by networking and asking the right people the right questions.
Our users needed guidance to the right resources, which is exactly what Pathfinder Labs was providing - a personalized recommendation based on similar veterans' responses.
“I wish I had some guidance after leaving the military, because I went in (society) blind.”
“When you first get out it’s a terrible time because you’re so used to routines.”
23% homeless population are veterans (US)
- National Coalition for the Homeless
“I was just looking for a group that didn't treat me like another number."
02 DEFINE
Problem Statement
Veterans need trusted, curated organization recommendations. How might Pathfinder Labs, which provides this help, clearly communicate its benefits?
03 DEVELOP
We decided to solve our users' and clients' problem by focusing on onboarding and personalizing the website so users feel they are taken care of at an individual level.
Our goals were to evoke:
-
Trust
-
Personalization
-
Communal Value
We revised the website's sign up, on-boarding, and reviewing functions through these flows. The following are a few of our favorite pages in detail:
After
Before
For the landing page after a user signs up, we made it react to their browsing activities and past searches to personalize the experience.
After
Before
(There was no "How It Works" page)
We made a new page explaining the machine learning involved privacy and information policies, avoiding a text wall.
The About page was further broken down with emotive imagery.
We built a section for Lana, the founder who started this community, because many veteran interviewees mentioned that the most helpful moments were those with an understanding human being who could connect them with others.
After
Before
FOR OUR DEVS
FUTURE
Conveying to online users that their honest opinions were valuable and mattered was our greatest challenge and reward!
With more time, we would have gathered more usability testing with more extended user types, like veterans' family members, caregivers, and service organizers to refine Pathfinder Labs.