“Students First” Website
Serving...
...the Alma Mater Society (AMS), the student society serving 50,000+ students at the University of British Columbia (UBC) in Vancouver, Canada. It operates at an annual $30 million budget. It spent $25,000 undergoing a rebranding in summer 2021.
The goal
To make ams.ubc.ca easier and simpler to use—both on the front-end, to help any UBC student find the information they need, and on the back-end, to help any AMS employee update information more efficiently.
The website design also needed to align with the AMS’ new brand identity putting “students first.”
...the Alma Mater Society (AMS), the student society serving 50,000+ students at the University of British Columbia (UBC) in Vancouver, Canada. It operates at an annual $30 million budget. It spent $25,000 undergoing a rebranding in summer 2021.
The goal
To make ams.ubc.ca easier and simpler to use—both on the front-end, to help any UBC student find the information they need, and on the back-end, to help any AMS employee update information more efficiently.
The website design also needed to align with the AMS’ new brand identity putting “students first.”
What I did
I designed new and final iterations of the website’s UI/UX designs, based on existing UX research. Then, I led the design QA process with the web developer. I also helped with content migration via Wordpress.
See launched website here: ams.ubc.ca
How I did it
Through an iterative process, I brought the low-fidelity prototypes to its final form. I integrated the brand identity into the website’s design and always considered students’ needs “first” with every design decision.
I designed new and final iterations of the website’s UI/UX designs, based on existing UX research. Then, I led the design QA process with the web developer. I also helped with content migration via Wordpress.
See launched website here: ams.ubc.ca
How I did it
Through an iterative process, I brought the low-fidelity prototypes to its final form. I integrated the brand identity into the website’s design and always considered students’ needs “first” with every design decision.
Tools
Figma, Wordpress, Adobe Photoshop
Timing
5 months, launched in April 2022
Support
Figma, Wordpress, Adobe Photoshop
Timing
5 months, launched in April 2022
Support
- Branding and UX research by Partners & Hawes
- Lo-fi prototypes by previous AMS designer, Reva
- Guidance and invaluable feedback by AMS Marketing Manager, Eric Lowe
Final Mockups
Preview below. Read from left to right. Click on image to zoom.
Lessons Learned
- Websites are fluid, not static. Take advantage of this flexibility. What is a priority? What can you leave to change later?
- There are often tradeoffs between design and development. Know your design goal inside out so that you can make smart decisions when up against the resource limits.
- UX research and evaluation make up the essential foundation that informs later design decisions—make sure you do it well, or if you weren’t part of the research team, get to know it well.
- Designing based on a strong intuition is one way to design. However, conducting evaluations to find out whether your designs actually solved the problem it set out to do is the only true way to validate your designs.
End of Project 05
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