Timeline
Role
Tools
A website redesign for a legal aid services company based in the Upper Peninsula of Michigan.
Taproot Law
October 2023 - December 2023
UX/UI Designer
UX Researcher
Balsamiq
Figma
Google Docs
Background
Our client was Taproot Legal, a legal aid services company based in the Upper Peninsula. They focus on providing affordable legal help to middle-class Michigan residents, particularly those in the Upper Peninsula. Taproot Legal’s current clients are generally in their 40s-late 60s, and about 75% of them are female.
Problem Statement
Our team goal was to solve Taproot’s digital and physical communication issues for people ages 50+ living in the Upper Peninsula. Specifically, we wanted to focus on promoting accessibility, both in our website revamp and our promotional materials.
Our Goals
Maintain — Design the website in a way that does not drive away current clients, but maintains their client base, and increases further site traffic
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Facilitate — Help clients navigate the website in a more simply way
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Engage — Create physical advertisements that will allow a new customer base to engage with Taproot
Research
Analytics
We looked at census data, local resources/community centers, and technology use statistics to gain a sense of how to reach our target audience. We found:
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People in the UP have more internet access than we originially expected
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We'd rather focus on accessing their current audience than extending it
Personas
Each of the members of our team created at least two personas, and we kept these in mind while doing research. Taproot Legal specified that they wanted to figure out how to communicate with an older audience, so we made sure to bear that in mind.
Interviews
We compiled questions that asked our interviewees about the current state of the Taproot website’s navigability, took notes, and attempted to correct/minimize those concerns through our low and high-res prototypes.
Ideation
Task
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Redesign the Taproot Law website in a way that makes navigation more seamless to customers. Interview users within Taproot's established age demographic and take into account their recognized pain points. Develop wireframes and high-res prototypes that improve these issues.
Simplified Steps
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Taproot's general audience is mainly made up of users that are not tech-savvy. A redesign of the law firm's web pages that makes it simple to use and understand for clients of all ages. Redesign the pages in a way that makes a client's introduction to the firm uncomplicated, and the appointment scheduling process easy.
Summary of Insights
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Services page is confusing to navigate
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Significance of each service is unclear
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Information overload
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Banner stays the same for every page, unclear if webpage is responding
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Schedule a Call button is hard to see
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Service boxes look like links
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Allow forms of contact other than contact box
Obstacles
Our team struggled with communication and scheduling. It was difficult to meet outside of class to work on things, even over Zoom, and technology issues with our group chat led to miscommunication and missed deadlines.
Originally, we intended to interview residents of the Upper Peninsula. However, due to time constraints and a lack of connection to residents, it was difficult to get in contact with them. Eventually, we pivoted to interviewing people who were in our target age group, which was people from the ages of 50-70, even if they did not live in the Upper Peninsula.
The time constraint of this project was also a difficulty. Because we needed to have it done by December, there was not enough time to perform significant user testing, and we instead focused on peer testing/review. Had there been more time, the high-res solutions would be more interactible, and there would have been more testing. We also would have tested the effectiveness of our new advertising redesigns.
Reflection
This project provided valuable insight for our team members on a real world scenario. We were asked for help and trusted by our client to create helpful solutions to their problems. Trust goes a long way in professional situations, so our team could not ignore that trust. Within the group, communication is highly important, and we will all learn from our experiences during this project to become better team players in future instances. Compiling research, analyzing the research, and finding a solution are some fundamentals to projects such as this. Looking forward, we will use our experiences with those fundamentals in this project for smoothing and solving problems we are tasked with in our futures within this industry.