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Expertise Overview
NCWM needed a website that was intuitive for its users, and we were up to the challenge to help create this.
While NCWM’s previous website sufficed for many years, they all agreed it was time to make it user friendly, modernize and reorganize. They had a plethora of content on the site that was complicated for visitors to navigate and was visually not up to par with modern design trends.
Besides looking outdated, the content-heavy website contained font sizes that were so small, they required visitors to use their browser’s zoom to read the copy. Walls of text on nearly every page provided little visual interest and contributed to feeling overwhelmed when landing on a page.
Our discovery process allowed us to lay out a clear path to a better website. They were excited for a change and during our discovery we uncovered a lot of priority pain points we needed to address.
After our initial discovery, we dove into extensive user interviews and usability tests, gathering insights from various website user groups to gain a better understanding of the familiarity and frustrations with the existing interface. These exercises gave us a much better understanding of the different customer journeys we needed to strategize for.
Our findings allowed us fully customize a solution for NCWM. During our interviews, we uncovered the impeccable reputation NCWM holds within its’ community, and acknowledged any adjustments we make must be respectful to long-time site users.
Another take-away from the usability study was that it was crucial to avoid inundating the site with heavy imagery or graphics (which would slow down the page load) as fast page load speed was one of the most favored elements across all users.
During the UX Strategy phase, one of the first things we did was conduct a thorough content audit. We used this audit to inform our suggestions for an improved information architecture. This was a crucial step because the NCWM website had all the information their target audience needed, but it was not easy to find. By planning out an intuitive primary navigation, annotating membership-only pages, and facilitating browsing via mega menus in the secondary navigation, we created a more precise path to the high-demand resources on the website.
Another major focus during the strategy phase was optimizing the lengthy NTEP certification application forms for usability. Since they are rather lengthy forms, we implemented a transparent progress bar for users to understand the flow and the time commitment needed to complete an application. We also made the forms much more user-friendly by utilizing proper field types, labels, spacing, and form hierarchy.
On-page, we introduced a typography hierarchy across the site by intentionally using size, color, and the font pairing to increase visual interest on each page. Partnering this with content organization techniques like tabs and accordions contributed to pages that were much easier to scan, and no longer required users to zoom in to read the copy.
SPINX built the NCWM website on top of a custom ASP.NET content management system (CMS). NCWM’s previous CMS was not very intuitive, so we designed the back-end of the website with diligence and intentionality to make sure it was easy for administrators to update content. Within the custom ASP.NET platform, we implemented a page builder, which provided flexibility for an NCWM admin to customize the design and content on high-traffic pages like applications, meetings, sector groups, exams, and more. We also optimized the NTEP Certificate search, Publications and Handbooks ecommerce pages, Exams, and Membership Applications through custom programming.
Since ecommerce functionality plays a key role in NCWM’s annual revenue, we paid special attention to planning, designing, and developing an optimized and very customized checkout flow. We made it super simple for both first time guests checking out, and return users. Returning logged in users could walk through the checkout flow in less than a minute.
The NCWM team worked in tandem with SPINX to ensure everything worked perfectly before launch. The testing included testing the numerous applications and pages on multiple browsers and devices. We put ourselves in the shoes of a user to test as accurately as possible. We ensured the website responded well on different screen sizes like desktops, laptops, tablets, and on mobile. NCWM previously had issues with individual pages on Internet Explorer, so SPINX prioritized effective testing all popular browsers.
It was essential to have the site functioning correctly immediately post-launch as users were visiting the site in large drove to renew and pay their annual membership fees. We continued to monitor the website after the site’s launch to gauge the user experience and continued to optimize performance.
Thanks to a successful collaboration, we were able to deliver a new website that NCWM and SPINX are proud of. A unique content-heavy project, we enjoyed the challenge of strategizing the best way to manage data and information in an effective way.
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