State Website Redesign
The State of Ohio is moving its websites to a new platform along with redesigning the site for each department in the process. So far I have worked on the Department of Administration, this site (ODRC), and their intranet site. For this project, I worked with a lead UX designer, a content specialist, dev, and the State of Ohio UX team. In addition to UX duties, I led the Information Architecture redesign and the entire UI design, hand-off, and visual validation working with dev.
We started with a content audit by reviewing every page of the existing site, identifying out of date content, the various types of content and page templates, and content that could be combined or possibly removed from the site. Working with heads of various departments and their respective teams we reworked their content and strategy, and organized these results in a way that also worked well with the templated site architecture that the Ohio UX team had previously designed.
Users come to this site to find out more information about where their loved is incarcerated and how to visit them, As mentioned, this information was previously scattered throughout the site. Our solution to this was to create a one-stop page for this information.
On this page, a user can first find basic information about visiting that applies to all ODRC facilities. Additionally, there are downloadable forms readily available that each visitor must have completed prior to visiting. We also added a quick link to another commonly used and related feature that allows users to send funds to an inmate.
The user starts by selecting the facility where their loved one is currently housed. From there, the page will automatically populate pertinent information specific to the facility and also information that applies to all facilites. Additionally, there is a link to a page that helps those who need transportation to and from visiting their loved one.
Nobody is happy when they come to this site. A high percentage of the users are people with a family member or loved one that is incarcerated. Because of this, one of our goals was to modernize the look and feel to provide a great user experience with a more positive color palette as opposed to a heavier and darker one. With this, we added starting points for the most used pages on the site to the homepage: finding an inmate, finding a facility, and learning about visitation. Previously, these pages were less prominent and sent the user back and forth between pages to find all of the needed information.
This site has been developed but is currently in content ops. During development, pages were handed back to me for visual validation. My job was to ensure that the developed site matched the prototype with pixel perfection and to work with dev to address any issues or troubleshooting.
View it live here.