Thomas Larsen

Problem

The LDS Global Style teams needed user feedback to validate their efforts in unifying the visual design of the LDS Church’s many sites and sub-sites. They also needed to understand the organization’s internal processes to help smooth the transition to the new style and process.

Role

Over the course of 3 years I assisted with and then led many research projects and was involved with many iterations of the UX design, giving data and analysis to the UI/UX designers. Some, but not all, of the projects are outlined below.

Phase 1: International Research (Recruiting)

I helped coordinate and recruit for focus groups and surveys done in over a dozen countries and in a dozen languages with members of the LDS church and coordinated with vendors to run and recruit for non-LDS groups.

Phase 2: Landing Pages (IA inventory/Heat Maps/Analytics)

I referenced hundreds of existing pages and sub-sites to inventory common layouts and UX design patterns. I used mouse movement and scrolling heat maps (from ClickTale) to learn how users were currently using the landing/navigation pages.

I recommended that landing pages feature content and features relevant to the users’ primary goal of fulfilling their religious responsibilities, rather than business-suggested content.

Phase 3: Iconography (Competitive Analysis)

I compared our icons with competitors and industry research on iconography (A/B testing, usability testing, analytics) and learned that if most icons don’t have a label or a not located where the user expects, they will be confused as to the icon’s purpose.

Phase 4: Sub-Navigation (Usability Testing/Iteration)

I coordinated and conducted usability testing (local, remote, in Spanish and in English) on different variants of the sub-navigation designs.

I learned that arrows were confusing on a mobile device and a fade to white was not discoverable and recommended utilizing a simple swipe interaction and some affordances to aid discoverability.

Phase 5: Template Implementation (Usability Testing/Iteration)

Over several years I ran many rounds of usability testing and did many heuristic evaluations to improve the design of media pages, lesson and manual pages, and other content-heavy pages.

Findings and Recommendations

KEY FINDINGS

1. Users come to our sites with a specific goal in mind, they don’t usually peruse the “fluff” content.
2. Their goal is usually to find what they need to fulfill Church duties.
3. Users of our sites don’t scroll often.

RECOMMENDATIONS

1. Include labels with icons as much as possible.
2. Perform Usability testing, A/B testing, and surveys to test all layouts, icons, and other designs.
3. Consider investing in gathering more existing research, as there was much more that the team was unable to analyze

I recommended that two media page types be combined (one had filters and one had a better thumbnail view), that repetitive content be merged, and that third-level navigation be featured more prominently.

Phase 6: Internal Adoption (Testing/UX Design)

I tested the systems and the process for the new unified visual style with users via usability testing, focus groups, interviews, and journey mapping.

I recommended that all relevant experts-on-the-ground be consulted through each iteration of the process or expensive issues would follow (as with prior system changes when experts were not consulted).

I recommended that the following process be followed for developing the new system: