September 2023 – May 2024
Overview
Gator User Design is a website concept for the University of Florida’s UX design club. The responsive prototype brings events, learning resources, and membership information into one place.
My role
My contribution spanned user research, information architecture, wireframes, and prototypes. I worked alongside Jennifer Purington, Thomas Kaw, Ky’mani Brown, and project manager Natalie Sesodia. The design team collaborated with two software developers on the website.
Problem
The club needed its first website: one place for students, employers, and potential sponsors to learn about Gator User Design, explore its activities and student work, and find ways to get involved.
The design had to serve students exploring UX for the first time, members developing their skills, and external visitors interested in the club’s work and opportunities to connect.
What other clubs do
We compared three organization websites, noting homepage length, event visibility, and how student work was presented. That review informed a shorter homepage with key destinations near the top.
Three organization websites compared
The three-site comparison informed a shorter homepage, prominent events and space for student work.
Research
We gathered feedback from 50+ survey respondents. I helped translate the research into site requirements and information architecture, and our team grouped ideas around events, resources, club information, and ways to connect. We also developed three personas, since each came to the site wanting something different.
Wants to build UI/UX skills and find events and career opportunities.
Wants to improve skills and explore freelance work, with limited time to find opportunities.
Wants to discover design talent and find club opportunities aligned with their organization.
After a short team brainstorming session, we agreed on five requirements: a contemporary visual identity; a clear introduction to the club and its activities; prominent upcoming events; a showcase of completed work; and useful UI/UX learning resources. These requirements gave the page layouts a shared purpose before we refined their visual details.
From audiences to destinations
Student and sponsor goals connect to events, resources, project work and contact pages.
Low-fidelity wireframes explored page structure before the team applied the shared visual system.
Low-fidelity wireframes
Early wireframes established page structure before the shared visual system was applied.
Design system
I contributed to a reusable design system and 8+ page layouts, helping the team carry the same visual language across desktop and mobile.
Shared colors, typography, navigation, cards, and form elements gave five designers a common starting point as we developed the prototypes.
Palette and type
The original style guide paired a purple and blue palette with Nunito in four weights.
Navigation, event cards, resource cards, team profiles, an FAQ, and a newsletter form were reused across the site, so the same destinations stayed recognizable from one layout to the next.
The component sheet from the original style guide, shared by everyone designing pages.
Responsive design
The homepage keeps the same four shortcuts on desktop and mobile: Events, Gallery, Resources, and Design Teams. On a phone, the full navigation becomes a compact menu while the shortcuts stay visible below the club introduction.
Desktop homepage
The header exposes the club’s main destinations, and member photography shows newcomers the community first.
Mobile homepage
A compact menu replaces the header links, while the same four shortcuts remain in a two-column grid.
Outcome
We completed desktop and mobile prototypes, a shared design system, and the layouts shown in the walkthrough. A development build is also available. This case study focuses on the design deliverables; usability testing remains a next step.
I would run task-based testing: can students find an upcoming event, locate a useful resource, and figure out how to join? That would help assess the design beyond the prototype.
Research has to carry into the build.
This was the first time I carried research all the way into a design other people had to build from.
A shared system is part of the design.
Getting five of us to work off the same system took as much of the effort as the design itself.
Website demo
Walk through the responsive prototype and its main page layouts.
Next project
Keeping stats at game speed ↗