End-to-End Design for New USAID Website
New platform enables USAID and partners to share knowledge and improve gender programming.
USAID gender content is spread across numerous properties, limiting knowledge-sharing among staff and partners. USAID's Office of Gender Development (GenDev) commissioned the development of a new Drupal platform to centralize this content, improve knowledge management, and increase awareness of the agency's programming. I served as the Strategy Lead for the project and orchestrated a team of designers, content strategists, and developers, towards launching the site in July 2022.
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Date: Sept 2021–Present
Client: USAID
Role: UX Strategy and Client Engagement Lead
Methods: Exploratory and evaluative UX research (mixed methods), user scenarios, prototyping, content modeling; Figma, Airtable, Miro, OptimalWorkshop
Kickoff and Discovery
The website work is part of a larger knowledge management and communications contract, and as such the scope of the discovery was broader than just the audience's digital experience. A colleague from another contractor conducted user interviews, and I informed his research questions to ensure the web team gained the insights we needed. My aim for discovery was to firm up the scope and priorities for the website before beginning design, and establish good working relationships with our client and partners.
Building a user-centered information architecture
During discovery we learned a lot about the content ecosystem, and had a sense of the work we would need to do to build a user-centered information architecture. Some of this work started during discovery and carried over into our design process.
Drupal setup and content configuration
I've worked in Drupal for several years, and therefore had a sense of how the content types, paragraphs, and vocabularies would work together. I proposed the initial content types and their attributes, and our Backend Developer built them out in our dev environment. As we moved through the project, the content configuration evolved continuously as we confirmed use cases and explored component options.
A Jira ticket for initial configuration for "Resource", a common USAID content type
Creating a design system
With the information architecture underway, I began bridging into design. I had a good-enough idea of page structure from the site mapping work, and this also would be a fairly predictable site build. We would also need to define a visual brand for the site.
Putting it all together, and looking ahead
As of April 2022, the information architecture is mostly finalized, component is design underway, and theming is ramping up. The team is on its way to launching the site in July 2022.
I've been able to "dip a toe" into Product Management by acting as the Strategy Lead and main client liaison—in addition to serving as the UX lead. It's been a true learning experience, and I'm grateful for the opportunity.