Redesigning the UN Environment Website
When redesigning the UN Environment Programme website, I used UX research and design best practices to guide the strategy, site information architecture, and ultimately the page templates used to build the experience.
UX Research
Since the site has a global audience, it was essential to incorporate multi-language surveys to ensure inclusivity and gather insights from diverse user demographics. I ran surveys in seven different languages, that also were sent to three key audience archetypes: policy-makers, scientists, and environmental advocates. 21 surveys total. This was used to uncover how these audiences used the website and microsites, how they felt about the current experience, and their requirements for a future site.
Additionally, I conducted various stakeholder interviews, which helped the understand different perspectives and aligns goals with business objectives. By combining insights from these sources, paired with in-depth site analytics provided by a partner analyst, I created detailed user archetypes that outlined demographics, emotions, and drivers/motivators.
Site Audits & Heuristic Evaluations
The next phase of work included a robust evaluation. There were 82 websites & micro-sites in the UNEP ecosystem. I set up a framework used to perform a comprehensive analysis, assessing the current state of each site's usability and user experience. The site audit involved examining various aspects such as content quality, technical performance, navigation structure, and visual design to identify areas for improvement. Additionally, the heuristic evaluation involved applying established usability principles or heuristics to evaluate each site's interface and interactions.Together, these evaluations provided valuable insights into the strengths and weaknesses of the sites, highlighting usability issues and areas where the audience experience could be enhanced.
Results Inform Design
Used all information gathered in the discovery phase to put together user archtypes for each major audience group: advocates, scientists, and policy-makers. Archetypes outlined demographics, emotions, and drivers/motivators.
The research findings, paired with a massive site evaluation exercise, site architecture, and design solutions that would cater to a broader audience and address stakeholders' concerns effectively. This large discovery phase was critical to help the team prioritize feature and template improvements, streamline navigation, and ensure that the new site aligns with best practices.
My role:
Senior UX Lead
Drafted, programmed, and analyzed 21 multilingual surveys
Created site & heuristic evaluation framework to audit 82 site and microsites, oversaw the team helping with audits
Created audience archetypes
Created findings reports and presentations to communicate all research & audit learnings to stakeholders
Drafted new sitemap to improve navigation, consolidated microsites where necessary & presented to stakeholders for approval
Led stakeholder interviews including UN digital content producers, policy-makers, scientists, and environmental advocates; synthesized findings
Created wireframes informing UI design for page templates & presented to stakeholders for approval
Authored technical specification documents to inform engineers how to build the Drupal site front and backend