Redesigning The Urban League Website
Improving Access to Community Resources
At a glance
What is this about?
I redesigned the Urban League of Springfield’s website to improve access to critical community resources for volunteers, program participants, and donors, especially users with varying levels of digital literacy.
What did you do?
As a UX Researcher and UI Designer, I conducted accessibility audits, user interviews, and card sorting studies to understand how different audiences navigated the site. I reframed the website into a three-audience system (Volunteers, Program Participants, Donors) and redesigned the information architecture, navigation, and visual system around accessibility, clarity, and trust.
Then what happened?
The redesigned experience improved navigation efficiency, increased content clarity, and strengthened user confidence in finding resources. It also established a scalable design system that improved consistency and reduced design effort by 25%.
Overview
The Urban League of Springfield provides critical community programs, services, and resources—but its website made those resources difficult to access.
Rather than supporting users, the experience created friction. It was outdated, hard to navigate, and not designed for accessibility or varying levels of digital literacy. This disproportionately impacted users who relied on it most, especially older adults and first-time visitors.
Through early stakeholder conversations and site analysis, I reframed the website not as an informational hub, but as a three-audience system serving distinct needs:
Volunteers trying to find ways to get involved
Program Participants looking for services and support
Donors seeking to understand impact and contribute
This reframing became the foundation for the redesign.
Framing the Problem
This was not just a visual redesign problem. It was about structure, clarity, and trust.
I broke the problem down into a few key questions:
How do people with different levels of digital literacy navigate this site?
What are users actually trying to find when they come here?
Where does the current structure break down?
What makes people trust or not trust what they are seeing?
Research & Discovery
To answer these, I used a mixed-methods approach so I could understand both behavior and intent:
Accessibility audit (WCAG 2.1)
to identify concrete usability and compliance issuesUser interviews (9 participants, ages 18–75)
to understand how different people approached and experienced the siteCard sorting (23 participants)
to understand how people naturally group and expect information to be organized
This mix of methods allowed me to compare how each group approached the same system differently, and where those experiences broke down.
Results from the user survey showed that visitors to the site were mainly looking for the mission of the organization, and looking to make donations
Based on this data, we also sorted all of the data into three major user groups:
Volunteers,
Program Participants
Donors
Across the many profiles, these were key:
1. The issue was not content; it was structure
The website already contained valuable information, but it was poorly organized, difficult to navigate, and hard to interpret.
2. Accessibility needs varied across user groups
Older adults consistently need:
Larger, more readable text
Clear and predictable navigation
Familiar interaction patterns
3. Trust and clarity were universal
Across all participants, users wanted:
Up-to-date, accurate information
Transparency about services
Confidence in the organization’s credibility
Results from the user survey showed that visitors to the site were mainly looking for the mission of the organization, and looking to make donations
Solution Design
I am drawn to problems because visitors care deeply about engaging with the content however lack the tools to fully engage. Watching visitors become absorbed in lab activity, even without context, revealed a natural sense of wonder. I saw an opportunity to build on that moment, to turn passive curiosity into meaningful engagement. Designing for that transition, from curiosity to clarity, felt both impactful and deeply motivating.
From there, I designed around three core principles: accessibility, low friction, and respect for real-world workflows.
Accessibility
Information should be easy to find, understand, and engage with. We focused on delivering clear, structured content that helps visitors quickly grasp what’s happening and why it matters.
Low Friction
Museum environments are complex, so the solution needed to feel effortless. We avoided heavy or fragile technology and instead designed something lightweight and reliable.
Workflow Respect
Lab technicians are doing precise, uninterrupted work. Any solution needed to fit into their existing workflow without adding cognitive or operational burden.
What I Designed
1. Simplified Navigation System
I reorganized content to align with user mental models, making programs and services easier to locate and understand.
2. Accessible Design System
I developed a reusable design system to ensure:
Consistency across the site
Faster iteration
Long-term sustainability for a resource-constrained nonprofit
Screen from donation flow giving the option to send a check, as well as go through the online donation process
3. Story-Driven Content Strategy
I incorporated testimonials and impact-focused content to:
Build emotional connection
Reinforce credibility and trust
Together, these changes transformed the site into an experience that is easier to navigate, more inclusive, and more aligned with the organization’s mission.
Screen cap from the “About us” page showing the urban leagues' rich and long history in Springfield
Validation
To evaluate the effectiveness of the redesign, I conducted:
Usability walkthroughs with interactive prototypes (5 participants)
Feedback sessions with stakeholders and representative users (~4 participants)
Navigation data from the last round of testing, including a rating of how hard or easy it is to navigate the flows
Findings
Users navigated the site more easily
Content was clearer and easier to understand
Users felt more confident interacting with the site
Results
Before, the website made it harder for people to access important resources.
After the redesign, it became a more usable, accessible, and effective tool.
Some key outcomes:
25% increase in design efficiency thanks to the design system
Easier access to programs and services
Clearer communication of the organization’s mission and impact
Most importantly, the site shifted from being a barrier to being abridge.
Reflection
This project challenged me to design for a wide range of users with different needs, expectations, and levels of digital literacy. I was also a volunteer lead on a project with a team that spanned across the world, from the US to New Zealand. Working strange hours due to time zones was challenging, yet I found my team brought such engagement to the project that I was always happy to wake up early.
Zoom call with our team, design and research team, along with our stakeholders at the UL
If I were to continue this work, I would prioritize post-launch research to better understand long-term engagement and community impact. Expanding testing across devices and user groups would also help validate how the experience performs in real-world contexts.
I learned:
Good design is not about adding more. It is about making access easier for the people who need it most.
How I Aligned This Project
Empathy
This project required designing for users with very different contexts, including older adults, first-time visitors, donors, and community members seeking urgent resources. Empathy showed up in prioritizing readability, predictability, and clarity, especially for users with lower digital literacy who were most impacted by the original experience.
Curiosity
I approached the website as a system shaped by assumptions about users rather than actual user behavior. Curiosity drove me to test those assumptions through interviews and card sorting, revealing that the core issue was not content availability, but mismatched structure and mental models.
Equality
Equality guided how I designed for accessibility and inclusion as baseline requirements rather than enhancements. This included WCAG-informed decisions, simplified navigation, and content hierarchy designed to support equal access to information regardless of age, ability, or familiarity with digital systems.
Joy
While this was a utility-driven nonprofit platform, I focused on making the experience feel less overwhelming and more supportive. Small moments, like clearer pathways, more legible content, and trust-building storytelling, helped shift the site from a source of friction into something users felt more confident engaging with.