This Is Life: Chicago
Creative Website Redesign For Easy Access
This Is Life: Chicago is a nonprofit organization (started by a mother and son duo) dedicated to supporting underprivileged communities in Chicago by empowering kids through performance arts. Our objective was to provide an updated website that showcases the organization's critical impact and allows for easier administrative access for updating web content.
Making It Personal
My personal goal with this project was to make the lives of the event hosts easier so that they could create a positive impact for even more people for years to come.
COLLABORATORS
Ezekiel Gavieres - UX/UI Designer
PROJECT SUMMARY
Timeline: 3 months
Deliverables: Functional and Responsive Website, Testing, Implementation, Customized Website Updating Guidebook
Tools: Figma, InDesign, Illustrator
Target Device: Web (Desktop and mobile)
MY ROLE
Product Designer of development, end-to-end
Satisfied all of clients feature requests
110% Client Satisfaction
Preparing For Design
We’ve scheduled a 1-on-1 video meeting with Natalie to learn more and discover what ‘This Is Life’ is all about—in her own words. This gave us profound information on what she wanted on her new website. In addition, we’ve also audited her old website to salvage the good and remove the bad. This allowed a much better layout that increased accessibility for when Natalie needed to update active components, such as events and media showcases.
Who Uses This is Life’s Website, and How Do We Include Them?
This Is Life has multiple end users. The event host, the event participants, and This Is Life’s sponsors. Part of our role as designers is to consider the perspectives of all users.
If I were the event host, I want to be able to add or update events…
If I were a participant or visitor, I would like to easily contact the event host and find out the details of the events. Maybe even donate because of how much I resonate with and support the cause…
If I were a sponsor, I would like to learn about the impact the organization had and what goals they’re striving for…
All of these sorts of questions, answers, and combinations of statements must be considered to make a good website even better by including the audience and thinking about their individual goals.
Modernizing The Brand
This Is Life’s goal was to reach over 10,000 youth performers within the Chicago area, and their objective has since been growing. To allow for even more growth, we modernized This Is Life’s logo and updated their design guide to increase accessibility. This includes better color contrast and improved text legibility across the entire website.
The Website Is Live
While taking into consideration all of the above, we’ve designed a website to align with Natalie’s needs and wants for a better experience. Who wouldn’t want to showcase their portfolio of presenting live on television and being written about by exemplary newspapers? We dedicated a space to help showcase and educate people about This Is Life. We’ve implemented intuitive navigation, clear-and-cut Call-To-Action buttons, and readily available and easily accessible information, as well as incorporated compelling storytelling techniques throughout the site. More importantly, we’ve allowed Natalie to keep improving and help change lives by making it easier to upload and update events to spread her and her son’s word across Chicago.
From Less Than 10 To Many More
Immediately after launching the website, “This Is Life” has attracted and increased traffic and engagement. The user-friendly interface and compelling narratives fostered a deeper emotional connection between This Is Life and its audiences, resulting in an influx of RSVPs and donations. When a website is intuitive and easy to use, less time is spent learning how to navigate it, which reduces frustration, illegibility, and high bounce rates.
What Did They Have To Say?
Dotting The i’s and Crossing The t’s
Through our comprehensive brand redesign and website update, we successfully transformed This is Life's online presence into a captivating platform that resonated with their target audience. By combining intuitive design elements, narrative storytelling, and an empathetic approach, we empowered This is Life to continue making a significant impact in the lives of underprivileged individuals across Chicago.
Tailoring Additional Experiences
At the rate of growth that “This Is Life” is experiencing, Natalie and her son will eventually need to take on additional staff to host events. I’ve crafted a guidebook on how to
add or update the website so that the team is self-sufficient. In doing so, it will save time and money for the organization and easily train future staff members to update the organically growing site.
What I learned
What I learned from this project isn’t the technical know-how, but how much I needed to understand the goals of the project. I finally understand what it means to “take ownership of a project”, and to cherish it, and its existing fruits and labor. “This Is Life” wasn’t just another project for me. It was a mission to help someone achieve new heights for a greater cause. A project I am honored to be a part of to change and save lives.
Thank you for getting to the end! I hope
you learned something new about me and the project. I have other projects you can check out.
Contact me if you want to
collaborate together!