Out & About

General Assembly UXDI Project | Nov 2022 - Dec 2022
Out & About is a community outreach organization that seeks to uplift the LGBTQIA+ community by providing a platform for social gatherings and resources.

Project Outline

For this project, I worked with a group of my peers and we were given a prompt from our instructors.  

“How might we as people on the move and neighbors build bridges to a shared future of stability and promise?”

Initially, we focused on how we would equip diverse communities, to help them grow beyond surviving, and create a thriving community. When discussing which demographic we would like to focus on, we landed on the LGBTQIA+ community. Thus Out & About was born.

Out & About is a community outreach organization that seeks to uplift the LGBTQIA+ community by providing a platform for social gatherings and resources. Our website is a one-stop shop for casual events, career-building opportunities, and other resources to foster physical and emotional well-being among users. 

My Role

In this project I collaborated with my team on many different tasks such as: Problem & Solution Statements, Affinity Mapping, Competitive Analysis, User Flows, Wireframes, Iterating Designs, Prototyping, Site Mapping, Drafting User Tasks, Usability Testing, and Research Synthesis

The Challenge

We were given the prompt, “How might we, as people on the move and neighbors, build bridges to a shared future of stability and promise?” In our market research, we recognized an area of opportunity to create a framework for social and financial growth within the LGBTQIA+ community.

People are struggling to find like-minded people to socialize with outside of an academic setting and fear discrimination when job hunting. Our target users are individuals in their 20s that are making the transition from the university setting into the workforce of their desired field. The LGBTQIA+ community needs an events resource so that relationships and community bonds are strengthened to support users' well-being.

Our Solution

Our solution was to create a website where users can find both social and career-focused events in the Boston area and a directory of resources such as Career Services, Sexual Health Resources, and more to support the physical and mental health of users. Providing high-quality events and career services, allows individuals to organically network their way into greater social and financial stability. 

Research

Market Research

Our first step was to conduct competitive and comparative analyses, we utilized element analysis and plus delta for the competitive research: while looking at the Center on Halsted, Out & Equal, Born This Way Foundation, and The Trevor Project. Our comparative analysis looked at Meetup, Eventbrite, Bumble Friends, and Bitwise Industry.

Our primary takeaways from our competitive research were:

• Intuitive global navigation is important, most of these websites have a navigation system that continues throughout the user journey on the website. Sites that didn't have a consistent navigational system were confusing to navigate and gain information about.
• Events and resources should be easily accessible, this is the primary focus of our proposed website and other sites with the same goal made their events and resources and the website itself needs to feel welcoming to build trust with users.

User Interviews

When picking interviewees for this project we prioritized members of the LGBTQIA+ community and allies in order to get a better picture and insight into the community and their needs. The questions primarily focused on aspects of being in a community, support systems, and stability within their lives.

Our main takeaways from these interviews were: 

• Money provides greatest stability for users
• Learning new skills has lead to stability for users
• Events are a great way for users to create new connections
• Users are most comfortable with people that are like-minded
• Users often seek out close, personal connections when in need of support

Design Process

Site Map

Design Iterations

Iteration 1: Our first iteration was designed while user research was occurring. We were still unsure of the exact direction we were going to take between an event website with resources or purely an event website similar to meet up

Iteration 2: Once we synthesized our research and learned the users want an event and resources website we started tailoring the user experience.

Iteration 3: In this iteration it became important for us to name our site and put our site map into action. However, we quickly realized that drop downs were an unnecessary feature and decided to create landing pages for each category.

Last Iteration: Finding the color scheme for our final iteration of our design was a challenge. My teammate and I initially started off with a muted rainbow, but that didn't work the way we hoped so we pulled it back to primarily reds and purples.

Usability Testing

Round 1

Our first round of usability testing was conducted with a group of users that were proficient with web design and were able to move quickly through tasks despite unforeseen bugs or other potential user flows.

Changes made after this round of testing were the "HIV/ STD Resources" category became the "Sexual Health Resources" category. This change made the use case for this section more inclusive and align with the way we phrased the user task. The second major change was shifting the pagination from the bottom left of the page to the center of both the top and bottom of the events sections, making it more visible to users.

Round 2

This round of testing was conducted with users that were less knowledgeable about web design and therefore took more time than group one to view the page before beginning the user tasks.

Changes made after this round of testing included the addition of a "Career Services" page that connected with the "Career Events" page as this was a common path that users attempted to take from both testing groups. Lastly, before moving on to our high-fidelity prototype we added a back arrow to event pages to make navigating back to the list of events a smoother experience.

Prototype

Next Steps

The next steps for this project would be: to build out other sections of the "Services and Resources" page, launch the donation page, do another round of testing to ensure that the change in pagination location is optimal, and expansion of the mentorship program for users. In reflection after the "completion" of the project, having RSVP pop-ups on the list of events page could potentially frustrate users that were hoping to navigate to the events page to learn more and ensure they wanted to go to this event. We also recognized that the "Learn More" buttons that we added were unnecessary, since the images or title could be the input to move the user to the next page.

Reflection

Ultimately I enjoyed this project and working with my team. I'm proud of us for stumbling through the ambiguity of our prompt, being open and honest with each other to get there, and working through the initial frustrations we encountered. To create a website for a cause we all stand behind, with a product that we are all proud of.