CREATIVE DIRECTOR
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prototyping
interaction design
user research
Overview
Rally is an application for high school activists looking to connect and share social justice ideas and practices. It was created for the Anti-Defamation League through the Global TIES Program at UC San Diego. Global TIES partners interdisciplinary teams of UC San Diego students with nonprofits and NGOs to co-create solutions to socially urgent problems in San Diego and the developing world.
My Role
As the creative director of the project, I oversaw the design decisions for the branding and UI for Rally. I worked alongside my team to improve the user experience of the pre-existing Rally application by incorporating research findings and user-testing feedback from selected users.
PROBLEM STATEMENT
The objective of our project was to redesign the user interface and user experience of the existing Rally app. The Rally app was developed by a previous team of students who focused on the backend and functionality of the app. To expand on the functionality of Rally to something more possible for enacting engagement and change, we phrased our problem statement to be:
"How might we enhance the interface and experience of the Rally app to allow high school students with an interest in social justice to connect with each other and create action?"
[FIG 01] WHO ARE WE DESIGNING FOR?
TAKEAWAYS
These two distinct users that we mapped out pointed out the different features Rally needed to have in order to appeal to both the activists and the politically inactive.
Additionally, the target users (high schoolers) have a lot of knowledge and skills that can be leveraged in Rally. They have an astute awareness of social media, and for this reason, they have the capacity to be a part of shifts in social/political thinking online as they first occur. They also have been raised in an era completely saturated in technology. We can leverage this knowledge base by giving high schoolers a platform to share ideas and collaborate and therefore, wanted to incorporate a plethora of tools for the users to meet, discuss, and learn.
[FIG 02] CURRENT UX (RALLY: BEFORE REDESIGN)
ANALYSIS & TESTING
My team's role in evolving Rally's interface first required finding pain points in the original design when it came to both the features and the user experience. To do so, we conducted a deep heuristic evaluation and collected feedback from users through online surveys and supervised interviews.
We discovered that...
→ The interface was not engaging and lacked the educational tone the application is intended to evoke.
→ Feature separation was not distinct or accessible as users found themselves having to complete an excessive number of steps in order to reach a certain function.
→ The application lacked novelty and recognizability compared to competitor apps.
[FIG 03] USER RESEARCH
[FIG 04]
BRANDING
We updated the branding to reflect the tastes of our target audience and to refresh Rally into something that was more...
→ Cool
→ Sleek
→ Vibrant
→ Modern
→ Playful
[FIG 05] UI REDESIGN
LIMITATIONS
Regarding the limitations of our study, there may be some issues with the validity of our study due to the volume and type of testers. Most of our testing demographic was not within our target demographic because of our inability to meet with individuals in-person. However, there are a number of tradeoffs associated with this decision. While it might be harder to get context-based feedback, general usability of the app can be tested.
NEXT STEPS
Since we only created a front-end design, our work still needs to be implemented in Swift by the next group of students working for the ADL. In the meanwhile, we plan to continue developing the design into a formidable product capable of enacting change!
This was one of my first projects for a non-profit organization, and to see a tool being developed for reasons outside of business gain has been rewarding and eye-opening in my creating thinking process. Thank you to team ADL for allowing us to support them and to Professor Ngo for encouraging such thoughtful projects!