Venturize is a nonprofit organization committed to helping small businesses get connected with trusted providers to help them grow. They specifically focus on women and minorities trying to build their business. They asked our Interaction Design class to design some concepts for their website.
This project was part of a school group project where I worked with 3 other designers to work on a client's website.
We all worked on pretty much everything on this project, but I had a large role in designing the consistency & standards for the brand, designing the desktop prototypes, and the competitive analysis.
Owner is exploring a new business idea and recently heard about Venturize. She's interested in receiving mentoring on how to get her business up and running.
Owner has been running her business for 5 years and has been meeting with a Business Assistance Provider regularly. She's ready to start looking and applying for a new loan.
Venturize employees need to be able to maintain the database of lending partners and wants to track and grow the Venturize network.
We learned 2 things from this survey
Responders were really mixed on what to call the A/V Panels. This may not be the worst part of the experience, but having stronger branding could create better communication between staff and OIT.
The most common complaints were that it's "finnicky" or "tempermental", suggesting that the system works, but has room for improvement, especially by making it more dependable.
Based on what we understood about Venturize's users and goals, we chose 4 of Nielsen/Norman group's heuristics to guide our work. These heuristics, if improved, would deliver success for our project. We also did a bit of Competitive Analysis that would give us some ideas to help Venturize improve related to our chosen heuristics.
Create a more Human experience.
Design a consistent experience that emphasizes the brand.
Architect an experience that prevents user error and frustration.
Intuitive interactions and clear messaging.
Testimonials are given greater prominence to improve social currency.
New visual identity system creates harmony between all of Venturize's offerings.
Error messaging is obvious, and clearly communicates how to recover from the error.
Messaging and visuals help you understand where you are and what's coming next.
This project taught me a lot about turning early needs into realized results using established research and guided activities that produce key insights about the client and their needs. Venturize was really happy with our results, particularly in regards to our branding and consistency decisions. Our designs also tested well with family and friends that we used for small usability tests to validate our designs. Our designs were successful in improving Venturize's fulfillment, consistency & standards, error prevention, and predictability & responsiveness. Other groups chose different heuristics, and I hope that Venturize includes many of their recommendations in future designs as well!
