Sticking the Landing: Redesigning a Landing Page with the User In Mind
By: Hal Rhorer
Tags: Design, UX Research, Landing Pages, UX Design, UI Design

Scope

This was a very lean project, so research, testing, prototyping, and design all occurred within a one-week timeframe. I was the sole designer working on this project.

To kick off the week, I dove into the current landing page and site information for Code Your Dreams. My goal was to identify proto-personas that I could use to center my design process around the user.

To ensure that I was not battling a serious case of scope-creep, I decided to focus on the donor-persona. My design would be looking to capture the interest of individual users who are interested in donating to support Code Your Dreams. After all, Code Your Dreams is a 501(c)(3) and can only run with a steady flow of monetary support from generous partners and donors.

Research and Analysis

I began with competitive analysis. I identified 7 “competitors” to analyze–I struggle to call them competitors because all of these companies are doing great, community-building work. I was looking for trends and UI conventions that these competitors used, with special emphasis on their overall visual style, landing page components, information architecture, storytelling, and calls to action.

I also conducted a UI audit and utilized online website resources like “onepagelove.com” and “UI-patterns.com” for component inspiration. Throughout this competitive analysis and UI audit process, I was especially inspired by the UI design of Clerksy.com and Kode With Klossy.

After this research, I determined that for my design, I would need to include:

Program Cards

Social Proof

Hero Images

“Donate” or “Support Us” Calls to Action

Mission-based copy

Design

I began by wireframing the necessary component and page elements into a basic sketch. While there was plenty of information I could have included, I wanted to narrow down the homepage to include only the most pertinent and inspiring information — if donors were coming to the page, I didn’t want them to have to sift through a ton of info just to get inspired to donate.

While I was reviewing the client’s website, I was inspired by all of the action-oriented language. The site was filled with words like “empower,” “justice,” and “action”. Naturally, these words conjured up images of action heroes and comic books, so I began to develop a visual style around that concept.

Using the color scheme that Code Your Dreams already had, I chose to mute some of the vibrancy and apply an analogous color scheme, to match some of the vintage comic book themes I was using. I used Adobe Color to determine the color scheme. I also wanted to add color variation — the original scheme was pink and blue and I wanted to get away from any gender-based assumptions that color scheme might carry with it.

I then created a mood board and a style tile to help me hone my concept and my design. Again, this was a lean process, so working quickly and decisively was key–these tools were intended to be functional, so I didn’t spend a ton of time making the mood board and style tiles “beautiful” since I was going to be the only designer using them.