Bottomless Closet

Designing a tailored resource system for women entering the workforce 

Company Overview

Bottomless Closet is a non-profit organization that inspires and guides disadvantaged New York City women for workforce entry, impacting over 46,000 lives with dedicated volunteers and partners.

Roles

  • Project Management

  • Competitive Analysis

  • UX/UI Design

The Goal:

I was excited to work with them because I quickly identified areas for improvement in crucial features like career assistance and donation processes, and aimed to enhance these key areas.

How can we elevate these already valuable features offered by this non-profit?

What can we discover through more research?

Process Overview

Throughout the research phase, I explored other nonprofits that not only raised funds but also provided direct assistance through their websites. To further support the team, I assisted in conducting usability testing.

1. Competitive Research

To enhance our non-profit, we researched offerings and industry standards from other successful organizations in the non-profit space

2. Heuristic Evaluation

In optimizing our non-profit, we scrutinized the site for inconsistencies, inefficiencies, and gaps in error prevention through a heuristic evaluation

3. Usability Testing

In improving our non-profit's usability, we thoroughly tested the website to identify and address issues such as confusing layouts, slow processes, and areas where errors could occur

4. Ideation/Prototyping

In innovating our non-profit's online presence, we carefully explored ideas and created prototypes to support our problem

5. Digital Development

In refining our non-profit's digital platform, we ensured the design and functionality resolved any issues found through additional usability testing, before transitioning the final concept to our development team for coding and implementation

Competitive Research

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Competitive Research 📋

Competitive Research

I built a competitive research inventory chart by studying successful non-profits that provided direct user support alongside donation options. Following this, we analyzed our competitors' websites to assess their offerings, appearance, and functionality.

Heuristic Evaluation

In our efforts to improve our non-profit, I helped examine the website for any inconsistencies, and inefficiencies. Most of the errors found were in accessibility and broken links.

*Displayed is a direct example of text disappearing on the original website upon hovering

Usability Testing

I assisted in conducting usability tests on the original website and we found that users faced challenges across all three of our proposed tasks—

  1. Finding the mission statement

  2. Seeking career help

  3. Registering for a workshop

Ideation & Prototyping

For our redesign I took many things into consideration. From high level changes like user flows to the small details like fonts and color styles.

*Displayed is our color grid we created to ensure we met AA compatibility standards

Solution

Improve the Bottomless Closet website by incorporating a clear mission on the homepage, optimizing the header, and simplifying page hierarchy. Improve 'Client Services' for clarity, enable seamless online onboarding and scheduling, and provide a convenient donation opportunity directly on the homepage.

HOMEPAGE REDESIGN

For our homepage I made information clear and convenient for both donors and new clients by simplifying our top nav, creating a CTA for career help, and clarifying what Bottomless Closet provides.

Before

The website rotated images and information that might not give direct information of what this site is about.

After

Based on what we learned in research we prioritized placing the mission front and center, along with a clear depiction of the main service provided by the non-profit.

Workshops Redesign

For workshop registration users struggled to find the right courses, so I put the descriptions right on the event listings page so users could understand exactly what each course was about before having to navigate to another page. I also simplified the registration process to be just a simple button click and form fill out.

Before

The website received feedback from user testing indicating that visitors struggled to understand the event acronyms, which led to confusion as the links directed them to an external scheduling site.

After

I created an easier and more informational view of the events offered to women in need. It is accessible through a link from the homepage and does not require users to leave the site.

HISTORY AND MISSION STATEMENT Redesign

Users had trouble finding the company's mission on the history and mission page. I fixed this by making the mission the top priority and cleaning up the rest of the other content.

Before

The history and mission statement was built into one large paragraph. In our interviews we discovered this to be an area many people skimmed over or missed information.

After

I organized the history and mission statement to be more clear and offered a breakdown of information.

Usability Testing

After incorporating our findings into a mid-fidelity prototype and conducting our second round of usability testing, The data showed clear improvements in overall functionality.

Findings

• Users were able to Find The Bottomless Closets mission statement 85% faster

• They could Register for workshops 72% faster and 65% easier

• The success rate for obtaining career help skyrocketed from 25 to 90%

Next Steps and Key Takeaways

  1. Conduct additional user interviews to gather more insights.

  2. Perform a second round of testing on our high-fidelity designs or even our fully built site.

  3. Build out additional pages to enhance the site's functionality and content.