10-Year Milestone Site
Problem: What information and features should be included on a celebratory microsite for the 10th anniversary of the Barbara Bush Houston Literacy Foundation?
Timeframe: 3 months
Role: Primary UX Researcher and Designer
Team: I worked on a small team of a Visual Designer and a UX Creative Director
Industry: Non-Profit
Project Background
The Barbara Bush Houston Literacy Foundation is a charitable organization created to improve the quality of lives through the power of literacy.
Over the past 10 years, the Foundation has served as a champion for the literacy cause across Houston by coalescing cross-sector leaders from community-based non-profits, public library systems, businesses, school districts and government agencies around a unified vision of literacy for all.
As part of the Foundation’s 10-year anniversary celebration in 2023, the organization planned to create an online microsite to capture their role in the community and to showcase real outcomes through quotes and impactful stories.
Our small team, set out to gather content, insight and inspiration to help build out and launch the microsite within 3 months.
"If you help a person to read, then their opportunities in life will be endless."
— Former First Lady, Barbara Bush
My Role in the Discovery Phase
Created moderator guides
Created interview scripts to help lead conversations with stakeholders to learn more information about the Foundation, gather impactful stories and collect quotes for the microsite.
Conducted 18 interviews in 5 days
I conducted interviews with internal Foundation staff, literacy partners, corporate partners and beneficiaries to learn about their experiences with the Foundation. During these interviews, we uncovered impactful stories and insight on different initiatives and groups that the Foundation led.
Compiled interview findings to create information architecture
Based on our interviews, I aggregated the information collected through affinity mapping to build the content structured on the microsite and proposed the information architecture to the clients.
My Role in the Design Phase
Created page templates for the microsite
I created the wireframes for the different page layouts that would be used for the final microsite. Working closely with the Visual Designer, we were able to deliver hi-fidelity mockups to the client.
My Role in the Implementation Phase
Collaborated with client to build out the site
Our team worked closely with the Foundation's marketing team to add in the content into the Squarespace pages.
Assisted with style guide creation
This style guide laid out the page templates, content structure and provided how to steps for the client to use in the future if they would like to add more pages to the microsite.
“We’re very excited about launching this website, we really feel that it’s going to be a springboard for migrating our current website and really focusing on how we tell our story in a better way where we use social media, leverage our website and blog.”
— Julie Baker Finck, BBHLF CEO & President
“You and the rest of the team have been instrumental in bringing this project to fruition. We can’t thank you all enough. Very excited to share the site with you all once we go live!”
— Kevin Aguilar, BBHLF Marketing & Communications Manager
Lessons Learned
Presentation skills
I got better at presenting to clients, leading meetings, and helping them make design decisions.
Collaborating with clients
I gained more experience in collaborating closely with clients. This experience highlighted the importance of documenting questions or concerns to facilitate easier and more effective communication with clients.