OVERVIEW

Known as Georgia Tech's largest entrepreneurship, Startup Exchange regularly hosts events that educate students about how to become involved with entrepreneurship, or to bring their startup idea to life.

Despite this objective, the organization lacked concrete transparency about their benefits for students, their target audience, as well as their mentorship program. Collecting user input affirmed these issues, as well as limited attendance for events.

By better defining the organization's brand and by redesigning the website's UI and information architecture, I solved those problems, yielding better event attendance and participation in the membership program, and attracting more sponsors.

ROLE

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UI and Visual Designer

UX/UI design, Information Architecture, Brand Identity, Site Prototyping, User Research

TEAM
SOLE DESIGNER, 1 DEVELOPER, 2 PRODUCT MANAGERS


DURATION
MAY 2021 - JULY 2021

Students and sponsors are given a fresh look

THE PROBLEM

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Startup Exchange lacked concrete transparency about their benefits for students, their target audience, as well as their mentorship program. Collecting user input affirmed these issues, as well as limited attendance for events.

Despite the 50+ startups that annually go through Georgia Tech's CREATE-X, an entrepreneurship coursework program, only 7 startup founders participated in Startup Exchange's membership program.

THE SOLUTION

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I defined the brand's colors, logos, and typography and tweaked the organization's mission alongside other exec. board members.

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Next, I redesigned the website via Figma, receiving design critique from the marketing director. My solution was implemented, and the entire site was rebuilt from the ground up.

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Furthermore, I branded and defined event series to establish message retention about the type of events that the org offers.

UX Process

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Why was attendance low? Do we need a fresh look?

USER
RESEARCH

RESEARCH ANALYSIS

DESIGN & DEVELOP

USABILITY TESTING

WEEK 1-2

Survey community about issues with our brand 

Gain user feedback on our web platform

Discuss internally about brand identity

WEEK 3-4

Develop needs assessment

Consider different approaches

WEEK 5-6

Redefine brand identity guidelines

Design event series to create customer imprint

Redesign site UI

WEEK 7 & BEYOND

Cognitive walkthrough

Heuristic evaluation (meeting WCAG guidelines)

Design interation

Address inefficient user flows

Site Wireframes

Creating the site wireframe in Figma, I iterated through several versions of the user journey for placing an order. Ultimately, I was able to develop an easy-to-follow and simple process.

Design

Colors & Typography

HEADER & SUBHEADER

DrukWide

BODY

NeueHaas
NeueHaas

UI ELEMENTS

TEXT

BUTTONS

PRIMARY LOGO

SECONDARY LOGO

What I've learned

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1. Simplicity is strength.

As a designer, it is easy to spend time creating intuitive, out-of-the-box designs. However, it is important to remember the "why." The primary goal is to understand the user and their specific needs.

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2. Continuously survey consumers about the user journey.

Efforts to continuously monitor customer satisfaction with the website died off very quickly. It is important to stay updated with the user's needs.

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3. Don't be afraid to speak up during the design process.

It is important to remember that, even though specific ideas develop strong support, don't be afraid to speak up in opposition if you feel that the idea presents a challenge to the user.