The Minnesota Ornithologists Union
Trying to find a balance… between new and expert users
Reorganizing a Wealth of Critical Data While Respecting Users with Decades of Experience
The Minnesota Ornithologists Union is a treasure trove of birding data. While it may not have the reach of websites like eBird and iNatrualist, what makes it stand apart is the specificity of the data available on its site. The MOU contains decades upon decades of extensive birding data down to a county level.
However, the MOU website hasn’t seen a design update for a very long while and because of this, the site is exceptionally hard to navigate. Users might get the wrong impression that the data on the site isn’t current, when in fact it is updated almost daily.
Our design team’s goal is to refresh the design and bring modern design principles into the website and information architecture, but also making sure we respect the needs of the MOU members that have been dutifully using the site for decades.
Methods + Programs Used
Figma
Sketch
Team-based Research Deep Dive Session
Multi-Touch Point Design Strategy
Figma Prototyping
Tree Testing
Usability Testing
Heuristic Evaluation
Comparator Analysis
Scoping Out The Goals of Our Project & Doing Extensive Research
With such an expansive site to work with, our team needed to prioritize goals that were in line with our stakeholder's expectations. Our first few days were spent strictly spent trying to absorb as much data as possible about the MOU and what they prioritize.
We then conducted a Heuristic Evaluation to understand which issues were plaguing users the most and then completed a comparator analysis on the most well know birding websites both regionally and nationally to see what worked well and could be incorporated.
See The Heuristic Evaluation I Performed with Paige Guggemos:
Interviewing & Testing With Members of the MOU Birding Community
The research was going to be a key component of the project because of the specificity of the subject of birding. Our team needed to make sure that we had a site that was going to work with the current user base or the MOU could lose a significant portion of near-daily users if a new design was implemented without taking them into account.
Our research contained an even mix of people familiar with the MOU, but also birders not related to the MOU. We needed to have a site that appealed to both to maximize growth for the future but also maintaining the solid and loyal users that already exist.
Creating a Prototype That Pushed The Website Forward Without Alienating Long-Time Users
We decided after research that organizing content would be our team’s #1 goal. The MOU already has a robust suite of content with most parts of their site fleshed out and filled. However, getting to that content was the greatest challenge.
At the same time, modern standards for privacy and account management needed to be added, and there were requests for events to take a more prominent role in the site.
Finally, quality of life adjustments needed to be added to various processes around the site, easy-to-use navigation buttons, user-friendly submission forms, and other elements that are common in sites users universally agree are easy to use.
Packaging Our Findings, Prototype & Recomendations
Our deliverable packet contained many elements we felt were critical to meeting the MOU’s website redesign goals. We assembled a packet for our stakeholders that included a summary of our research findings, a heuristic evaluation, a comparator analysis, the working prototype, an architecture diagram, annotated wireframes, a user touchpoint map & supplement, a style guide, and a presentation video.
With these deliverables, the MOU could move forward to present our findings to the board and redesign the website in the future, with very light consultation from our design team.
See The Parts of the Project I was involved in:
Presenting a Clear & Concise Vision for the Future
Finally, we presented our findings to our stakeholders in a public setting unveil our vision for the MOU website redesign. Here, we did a complete overview of our process from start to finish including the research, design and final prototype.
You can watch a recording of the presentation here:
Changing The Information Architecture of a Longstanding Website
But respecting the needs of both the new and veteran users.