UX RESEARCH · DESIGN
Dress for Success
(Research)
An uplifting platform dedicated to empowering women by providing virtual resources and mentorship to help them achieve their career aspirations.
my role.
Lead UX Designer
UX Researcher
team.
4 UX Students
Dress for Success
duration.
8 months, 2023-2024
tools.
Figma
Google Workspace
Heuristic Evaluation
As an evaluator, I conducted a usability assessment of the DFSWDC website and its Virtual Career Center (VCC), identifying key design shortcomings.
Findings
The evaluation revealed violations of 7 out of 10 usability heuristics, highlighting critical areas for improvement in navigation, clarity, and user interaction.
Competitive Analysis
The competitive analysis below revealed that out of the 10 standards identified, DFSWDC only follows 2. Compared to other Dress for Success company websites in other cities, DFSWDC scored the lowest out of all.
User Interviews
Participants
During the interview process, our team interviewed a total of 8 participants. They all had different backgrounds, history with the organization, and experiences with the website.
6 out of the 8 participants are clients of the service and the other 2 are volunteers working with DFSWDC.
Key Finding #1:
Along with career coaching, clients of DFSWDC rely on volunteers to fill in the gaps on the website. Volunteers are not always able to support clients in this process and wish the client could independently navigate these things.
Key Finding #2:
Many long-time users are unaware of the VCC's existence. If they are aware of it, they still do not use the resources available within it.
Key Finding #3:
In-person/synchronous resources and interactions leave users feeling positive emotions.
Usability Testing
Participants
We also received insights about feelings and behavior from 8 participants as they navigated the current website. Each of these participants was new to the website and had never used it before. They each had varying backgrounds, ages, and occupations.
Tasks
Find the Virtual Career Center.
If you were looking for resources on creating a resume, where would you go?
Show me where you would go if you wanted to find tips on how to dress for an interview.
If you were looking to get a career coach, how would you go about starting that process?
If you were looking to make a federal resume specifically, how would you find a template for it?
Findings
Overall, each task was able to be accomplished by the majority of participants but not with ease. Every task required a higher level of effort, time, and error to accomplish for at least one of the participants. From this, we were able to identify key issues within problematic pages.
Issues Identified:
Analysis
Themes & Insights
