Summer ‘23
Tuskegee Airmen Inc. (TAI) is a nonprofit organization that aims to ****honor the legacy of African Americans who participated in the Army Air Corps during WWII. TAI’s endeavors have enabled young people across the country to explore opportunities in science and aviation, and gain educational support for demonstrating the original Airmen’s values of courage, leadership, and determination.
At the start of the research phase, we met with our clients to learn more about their pain points and desired changes. The main concern was that the site was packed with a lot of information, but it was stagnant, poorly organized, and difficult to navigate. This alienated their current user base, who skewed a bit older and weren’t all technologically-inclined.
The organization wanted to bridge that gap of communication with their members, and also find a way to attract new ones from the younger generation, who could help carry the torch and uphold the legacy. Together, we decided that coming up with a more consistent, accessible, and navigable website design and providing graphic design assets for their social media initiative would mitigate their chief concerns, while helping to support the organization’s overarching goals.
Problem Statement: Tuskegee Airmen Inc.’s website is information-dense and difficult to navigate.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CgNfVl91Pro&ab_channel=CT
Before making any design-related decisions, we sought to validate the problem with a round of competitive analysis to understand the market, as well as user surveys and card sorting to learn firsthand the motivations of our target user. We wanted to make sure we were designing with their needs in mind, and pinpointing the most impactful areas of improvement for the site.
We conducted a competitive analysis to explore what seemed to be resonating with users of nonprofit websites with similar missions. This gave us ideas on how to design a stronger navigation display for TAI’s website, as well as how to present a smooth flow of content to balance out the archival nature of the organization with its present-day activities.
We also researched nonprofits in the education sector, since we knew TAI wanted to highlight their youth programs and endeavors, and took their UI into consideration.
