FAS - Produce Grants
Creating a grant submission MVP from user research findings
The work discussed is under NDA, but I can explain what I took away from this project and what it entailed at a high level.
Overview
Our clients within the USDA needed a rebuild of an almost two decade old application used to submit grants. The users of this application range from USDA employees, non-profits, and universities.
I joined my team at the beginning of this project, and was the sole designer to lead user research. I conducted a dozen interviews with core users to understand the context and key problems within the current application. After these interviews, I took the primary role in reviewing footage and synthesizing results. I ranked the most prevalent concerns that the users had to be prioritized in the application’s rebuild. A major problem users were encountering was a lack of guided navigation through the complex application process. Once initial research was concluded, I led the task of designing the application so that core functionality was retained but the users were guided through the application submission process.
Once the application MVP was created, I spoke at several conferences to both stakeholders and users to advocate for the new website. I also connected with users to gather feedback and obtain insights that was used to better guide the new application.
Below are redacted examples of some work that I did during this project.
Role
UX Design
UX Research
UX Advocate
Type & Timeline
Full Time Work
April 2023 - October 2023
Tools
Adobe XD
Figma
What I learned from this project
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Designing New Information Architecture
This project gave me the opportunity to redesign a complex, data heavy application to make it more intuitive to users
Advocating for Design
I had the unique opportunity to publicly advocate for this website’s design. I also championed design thinking in technical and strategic discussions about the application.
Designing with Existing Design Systems
During this project, I used the existing design system of the USWDS and rebuilt some of the design systems in XD so that others in the company would benefit.
User-first Designing
Since this was a rebuild of an existing application, many of the users were extremely familiar with how it worked. I learned how to create an intuitive experience for new users, while ensuring core users were not alienated.
Reflections & Next Steps
I moved onto a new project once it went into development, so the next steps would be to conduct more user testing to see how they react to the new application. I will have the opportunity in the future to return and do those tests, so I have prepared the research protocols needed as well to learn if there will be new users. After, we will refine the application based on feedback and access future objectives based on our USDA clients.
Overall, this project enabled me to lead the design of an application from start to finish, which was a huge learning experience. I worked with a cross functional team that gave me a lot of perspective and ideas for this application. I had to advocate for the design of this project and UX design in general to dozens of stakeholders over the length of this process. I learned that I really love public speaking and quickly became the “go-to” for UX design advocacy within our 30 person team.