Yellow Rose LaunchPad is a scholarship scheme and empowerment organisation aimed at increasing female representation in Science, Technology, Engineering and Mathematics (STEM), and helping to achieve gender diversity in the higher paid sectors of the Nigerian economy.

• Provide credibility for the organization.
• Provide convenience as regards the application process for the Scholarship fund.
• Allow for easy data collation of applicants
• Inform and educate users by providing for easy content management on the site.

The Yellow Rose Project is one project I particularly enjoyed being a part of.

I kicked off the project with a discovery session with the client, this was to help me understand the needs of the brand first so I would be able to align it with user goals and ultimately design decisions. Based on this session, I was able to deduce that they wanted something that was simple and very straight to the point, so applicants could come and get the necessary information as fast and easy as possible and they won't have to be so involved in running the site in terms of answering questions or having to put people through the process of filling the application form. This session was also to help inform the styling choices for the website in terms of colors, fonts, imagery, and logo.

After my session with the clients, I moved on to conduct user interviews getting insights from users on appeal, experience, and usability of other sites offering same service. I also was able to get insight on other needs that users would like to have. Interview results with users helped narrow the allocation and prioritization of content as well as the information architecture as a whole. They highlighted that when they go in search of scholarships they usually just want to know what to do without having to click through a lot of pages, which is what was common with the scholarship sites they had come across. I also worked on the mood board for the site, pulling together inspiration to help with styling.

Knowing this I ensured there were not too many fanfares on the site.I kept things minimal, simple, and straightforward.

Having drawn insights from both the clients and the target audience, I went to work, putting together a Design Strategy document covering the vision of the brand and giving a view of the Information Hierarchy as well as to help the brand owners properly map out their content. It was after this that I moved on to drawing up wireframes, and the eventual UI of the site. Upon approval, I then moved on to implementing the design on WordPress.

A better approach to the collation of applicants data would have been an online form, but client was insistent on not having applicants data online and an offline system would serve them better. However, to make the form filling and submission process easy for applicants still, in the PDF design which I also did, I included details on how to fill the document using adobe fill & sign option. This was so they wouldn't be faced with having to scan so many paper copies to submit and could easily fill the form.

In hindsight, another solution, would be a Google Docs document with a view only access given to applicants. They can then make a copy, fill on their devices, and easily share as a PDF document. Of course, an online form process would have been absolutely easier but I was unable to convince stakeholders to go this route at the time.

Overall, I was able to communicate the simplicity of the brand in the colours, the kind of imagery, the page layout. Also, having the eligibility requirements as one of the key things applicants get to know proved helpful alongside a FAQ section. Doing this I was able to reduce the enquiry and back and forth process involved in the application process.

Every element was intentionally chosen and used to further project the brand personality and help in achieving the goal of a very straightforward and uncomplicated application process.