Designing for impact: GROW Windham’s website redesign

GROW Windham is a non-profit organization that creates intergenerational spaces that empower youth to develop advocacy and leadership skills and help bring awareness on food and environmental justice in the town of Windham, CT. A well-designed website will not only enhances the organization’s visibility but also facilitates its mission by providing essential information and resources to the community they serve.

While discussing a need for a redesign of GROW Windham’s website, the goal was to create a user-friendly, informative, and visually appealing online presence that effectively communicates their values and initiatives.

Timeline: Jan - May 2024
Role: Product Designer, Web Designer
An mockup image of GROW Windham's site on a laptop and mobile device

Why a redesign – The need for a UX audit

I wanted to ensure that the new website meets the needs of their users that supports their mission as well. Before diving into research, there were some already obvious pain points on the website which led me to conduct a UX Audit.
The audit revealed issues such as:

A screenshot of the youth resources page on GW's original site.A screenshot of GW's original site showing the navigation items
Outdated Content: Some sections of the website contain outdated information, which can lead to confusion and mistrust.
Cluttered Navigation: The current website's navigation is cluttered with too many items and is unintuitive.
A screenshot of GW's original site of their "Who We Are" page
A screenshot of GW's site in mobile version

Poor Visual Design: The current visual design is outdated and lacks visual hierarchy structure.

Mobile Responsiveness: The current design is not optimized for smaller screens.

By addressing these pain points and focusing on user experience, accessibility and responsiveness, I can create a website that not only serves as a valuable resource for the community but also effectively supports GROW Windham’s mission and goals.

User Needs: Who is the target market?

Based on the UX audit that was completed, I decided to break down users into 2 groups: Primary & Secondary:

An image of the primary users of the website, youth ages 14-21
An image of the secondary users of the site, adults in organizations, teachers and parents.

Current Metrics + Analytics:

GROW Windham’s site was created on WIX and hosted on DreamHost. I checked their web analytics YTD (2023) and the results supported the UX audit: 

trending_down
Bounce Rate: 47.7%
visibility
Visitors (Returning): 1.8%
desktop_windows
# of pages per session: 1.9 (~2)
article
Avg. blog posts views: 26

Ideation and Concept Development

Beginning with organizing the content on the website, I worked on streamlining the site map by condensing and removing unnecessary pages and navigation items to simplify the site and make it much more user friendly.

Original Site Map:
An image of GW's original website's site map
New Site Map:
An image of GW's new website site map

Sketching some low-fidelity wireframes, which served as the initial blueprint for the new site, that were then transformed into a digital version, helped create a clear and structured skeleton for the website. This foundational framework became an invaluable tool for illustrating my vision to my clients. It allowed them to see the potential of their new site and understand the direction we were heading. Through this collaborative process, we laid the groundwork for a website that would be both functional and visually engaging.

An image of GW's new website's digital wireframes

Prototyping + Design Decisions

I proposed the idea of crafting a new logo to better meet these needs since their current logo had legibility issues, but they insisted on keeping the original design. I devised a simple solution: enlarging the logo & enhancing the color to improve its legibility without altering its essence. This subtle adjustment allowed their brand to shine more clearly and effectively.  To further support their vision, I developed a comprehensive set of branding guidelines and a design system. These tools serve as a valuable resource, empowering them to seamlessly integrate new content into their site while maintaining a cohesive and accessible brand identity.  

An image showing GW Branding Guidelines/components

Web Development and Implementation

The old website was built using Wix and my clients did say how they would struggle with updating the site since it was a steep learning curve for them. I recommended Webflow since it has a "drag and drop" style for elements on the site. Since I built the new website using Webflow, I needed to switch over the domain name from the Wix site. I went on DreamHost, where they were hosting their site as well as their domain name, to switch over the domain name to the new Webflow site.

Due to a typo in the .TXT field, it did not propagate anything at first. Once I realized this error, I corrected the typo and the domain name was now verified and ready for use on the new site. Ensuring all accessibility points were complete, I did a quick accessibility check with the help of Webflow’s audit panel. Once the audit was complete, the website was launched. A CMS Collection was added to make adding blog posts much simpler without having to go into the designer.

An image showing the original website, the hosting website and the new website

Final Insights

Currently, GW's website analytics (EOY 2024) show:

We had envisioned several enhancements to elevate the website's functionality, but unfortunately, budget constraints have delayed their implementation for now.Among these planned features was a language toggle, designed to seamlessly switch between English and Spanish, making the site more accessible to Windham's Spanish-speaking community. Additionally, we aimed to introduce a search function on the youth resources page, enabling young users to quickly find and access resources through the existing PDF catalog. While these improvements are on hold, they remain a priority for future development, as we continue to strive for a more inclusive and user-friendly experience.

Overall It was an absolute pleasure to work with GROW Windham and being able to create a site that fits their user needs as well as their own.