Denver Zoo Rebuild
This project is the first user-experience design project that I have ever done. This is a school project at the University of Colorado Boulder. My goal is to help the Denver Zoo in its website redesign. I got to explore my style and the basics of UX design. My role in this project is the sole researcher and designer I got feed back and advice from Brittney Urich. My challenge was to make the Denver Zoo website an enjoyable and less complicated experience for its users. Along the way, I experienced a limitation of the website updating so I could not go reference the original website I was introduced to while redesigning.
User research
To begin user research I had to find people to test with, to solve this issue I went around the university Library and Engineering Center to screen and learn from my fellow students. The first pain point found was that there was too much going on the main page causing them too feel cluttered and disorganized. The second pain point found was that there where too many pages to check out tickets.
Problem statement
Before working on my prototypes I created 3 problem statements:
How might we deliver a shorter experience that delivers everything the customer needs
How might we create a more inclusive button UI design
How might we deliver an easier ticket checkout experience
User flow
After creating my problem statements I needed to rethink the way that Users would buy their tickets. Instead of repeatedly being badgered into buying their other products we would merge those resources into one area. Also, we would make the users more comfortable with the selection process instead of them feeling like their answering the same question repeatedly.
Low fidelity
I was surprised to learn that professionals still use pen and paper when designing websites and layouts. I learned how to speedily go through my ideas on the user flow. While playing with the ideas I had in my head I also learned how to experiment with cohesiveness and how my thoughts actually transferred on paper.
Mid fidelity
Although the idea was down there were still many more refining steps to go. After getting some time to re-look at my project and getting feedback from my professor at the same time I got to putting my project from paper to on the screen. During this process I forgot I’m not supposed to use actual images yet.
High fidelity
Halfway through the project, I’m getting a hang of design principles and how users would interact with my project. It’s time to dive into greater detail and add color and fonts. I really enjoyed working and experimenting with design systems.
Instructor feedback
Throughout the process, I got to explore what it is like to be a UX designer. I could not have done this alone and I got some valuable advice from my professor. The first piece of advice that I will talk about is how to space and size the content such as using multiples of 8. The second piece of advice I got was to look at what I thought was a great idea but it turned out that it would’ve just added more confusion that I was working to avoid. For example, I had a model that was useless even though I thought it flowed well with the process the user was going through. The final piece of advice I have gotten was how to work with buttons (primary and secondary) and how to effectively use CTA’s.
Evaluation and reflection
To test my prototype I went back to the same places where I did my user research and reviewed my designs with them. The first pain point that was pointed out to me was that the debit card information was put in a weird space that was hard for them to find at first. The second pain point was that there was an alignment that I had somehow missed before.
The next step for me would be to use less of a simple design. I would want to carry some of the artistic energy that the current Denver Zoo website has while keeping the clarity that my prototype has. I would also play around with different features of Figma to learn more about what they have to offer.
In conclusion, I experienced how UX designers think, work, and critically look at design. I learned how to work with content and design systems. Finally I learned how to prototype websites.