The Basement
redesigning the basement
Overview/Background
As a Marketing and Communications Assistant for The Basement, I have the opportunity to lead a redesign of the organization website. There were many issues such as long loading times, vague descriptions, and ineffective information architecture which made the user experience of using The Basement website confusing and frustrating. In redesigning the website, I aimed to address these issues to help increase the usability and better represent the goals and values of The Basement.
Problem Statement
The Basement? Every student I have talked to does not know what The Basement is, where it is on campus, or what The Basement does.
When directing them to the website, students still had a lot of questions and doubts:
Is this for students?
Is this for certain students?
Is it for me?
My goal in redesigning the website was to make it easy to navigate, simple to understand, and more immersive.
Solution
Through user research conducted via a brand perceptions survey to the UCSD Reddit and various UCSD-affiliated Discord channels and servers, I received 41 responses that helped guide my design decisions.
Based on feedback from survey, I realized that students wanted to see information about events, programs, and general information about The Basement the most.
BEFORE
HOME (MOBILE)
Not optimized for mobile viewing
HOME (DESKTOP)
Unclear as to which students are actually able to benefit from these offerings
EVENTS
Google Calendar feed is archaic/not visually engaging
AFTER
HOME (MOBILE)
Clear Home Landing page with consistently formatted calls to action (buttons, interactive displays, embedded forms)
HOME (DESKTOP)
More explicit, less theoretical language to be more clear and approachable to students discovering the page for the first time
EVENTS
Improved events page — Added Instagram HTML plugin with current event graphics and revised calendar layout so users don't have to individually click on each date to find out what is going on, as well as simplifying it for The Basement staff as the website is automatically updated with every post instead of requiring manual updates
Reflection
While this project is currently in-progress, a major takeaway is the importance of open communication with all parties involved to ensure we have a strong understanding of our shared vision for what the website's purpose and overall brand messaging is targeted towards. Setting multiple meetings to clarify and understand this conceptually has been paramount to making effective and also desired iterations in the redesign process.