Urban Alliance

UX | IA | CONTENT STRATEGY

Designing the website for a D.C. non-profit to enhance sales efforts

Urban Alliance empowers under-resourced youth to "aspire, work, and succeed through paid internships, formal training, and mentorship." Urban Alliance has worked with over 500 businesses to put 3,000 young people on a path to economic success. This website redesign was an opportunity to energize and grow the Urban Alliance audience and encourage people to join as a job partner, intern, donor, or supporter.

The design challenge was to tell the story of Urban Alliance and the organization’s impact in a way that would both inspire and grow their audience. For Urban Alliance's 20th anniversary, the website redesign served as an opportunity to leverage a historical achievement and way to bolster a brighter future to reach their organizational goals. By developing the design and messaging that would articulate the ROI of supporting the internship to prospect job partners, the Urban Alliance team could use the website as a valuable sales tool to grow their internship program.

UX RESEARCH and JOURNEY MAPPING

Audience definition and user research

One of the critical website goals was to build a user experience that supplemented Education Director’s sales efforts when pitching the internship to prospect job partners. However, there was little insight into what talking points were the most effective in convincing prospect job partners to adopt the program. Additionally, it was critical to find out what questions the job partners were asking throughout the sales cycle, and how to address these issues and concerns through the website.

Usability interviews and findings

To identify leverage points for how to frame the ROI for prospect job partners, we conducted a series of interviews with current Education Directors, the stakeholders responsible for selling the internship program and onboarding new partners. Because this project was low-budget, the user experience and research strategy needed a resourceful approach. Thought user research and testing was recommended, it didn’t make it into the budget. However, I took a streamlined approach to prioritize both in the discovery phase of the project.

I conducted and co-facilitated a series of four, 30-min phone interviews with each of the Education Directors from Chicago, Baltimore, Washington D.C. and Virginia with another UX team member. Through these interviews, we gained a better understanding of the sales cycle, pain points, and opportunities the ED’s faced in selling the ROI of the internship program to prospect job partners. We found what data and social proof were the most effective “conversion tools” and used these themes to highlight on the “job partners” page of the website.

Findings from these usability interviews informed the user stories we used to shape recommendations for the information architecture strategy. It also helped identify and highlight themes for motivations, goals, and concerns that job partners had in the initial sales cycle, as well as information that was effective in selling the ROI of the program to job partners.

Medium-fidelity Wireframes

Information architecture
and content strategy

During our user interviews and resulting user scenarios identified a need for using social proof, real stories from job partners and high school students, and data points to communicate the values and benefits of the job partner participation in the site architecture and experience. It was also essential to address the risk-averse nature of potential job partners, who were focused on how joining the program would help their bottom line, as well as the level of training that was involved. The values and benefits of job partner participation needed to be clearly articulated in the information architecture in a way that resonated with stakeholders and decision makers, so that the website could be used as a vital tool within the sales process.

Therefore, I structured the architecture and messaging to highlight both the economic and social impact for prospect job partners. Utilizing statistics accompanied with real images from the program was a deliberate design decision to showcase the engagement between a job partner and intern, as well as appealing to the emotional impact the program would have on the high school student.

DESIGN RESEARCH

Design that is Warm, Relatable, and Credible

Great websites communicate why an organization exists—not just through words but through design.

The Urban Alliance website redesign was an opportunity to energize and grow its audience. The site needed to inspire users to engage as job partners, interns, donors, or supporters.

At the start of our collaboration, Urban Alliance’s website was text-heavy and visually outdated. Visitors struggled to understand how the program worked or the significant impact Urban Alliance had on under-resourced high school students by providing on-the-job experience and guiding them toward economic self-sufficiency.

During the design research process, I analyzed websites of high-impact organizations, identifying visual elements that effectively communicated ROI and human impact while telling a compelling brand story. The new site design introduced a streamlined information hierarchy, improving user comprehension and fostering engagement.

HIGH-FIDELITY DESIGN

Design that Inspires

While the new website design needed to evoke emotional excitement, it also required a rational and pragmatic appeal for job partners.

The content and visual design had to convey Urban Alliance’s trustworthiness, credibility, and operational excellence. To craft a digital brand that was both professional and vibrant, I emphasized authentic program photos showcasing connections between job partners and high school students. The organization’s brand colors were thoughtfully incorporated as core design elements throughout the site, creating a cohesive and engaging user experience.

MEETING ORGANIZATIONAL GOALS

Building Tomorrow’s Workforce Today

As the lead UX designer and creative director for the project, I was fortunate to work as part of a two-person team responsible for front-end and back-end development, as well as lead usability sessions. Our client team played a critical role in articulating the goals and objectives for the site and collaborated with us throughout the process to refine messaging, UX, and design recommendations to better connect with their target audience.

Since the launch of the new Urban Alliance site, it has become a valuable sales tool, helping to connect Urban Alliance with prospective job partners and showcasing the benefits of investing in the program. The updated web presence highlights the program's economic and human impact, supporting Urban Alliance's mission to expand its reach.

Since the project began in 2016, Urban Alliance has successfully expanded its award-winning high school internship program to Detroit. They continue to rely on their website as a critical communication tool to drive expansion efforts, including growing the internship program in new locations and attracting new job partners.