- UI Design
- Website
- Drupal
- Search Applications
2022-present
SBA-SBIR (Small Business Innovation Research) Website
My team lead the re-design of the authoritative source for U.S. small business federal seed funding, moving it to a more modern, updated design. The client has continued to receive positive feedback, and noticably more user accounts created for SBIR-STTR applicants and awardees.
Congress appropriates around $4 Billion a year for SBIR-STTR funding awards that small businesses can take advantage of for their projects. To promote this program, their new website needed a revamped search tool, updated page content for applicants looking to utilize the program, and a better authoring process for more frequent site updates.
Design Process
Discovery
Interviews were conducted with the client/stakeholders from SBA. The old site had complaints that it wasn’t showcase the program’s successes well, or effectively communicating the application process.
We focused on finding out how users typically found out funding deadlines, materials they needed to apply, what a typical application process looks like, and success stories from applicants who were awarded funding.
Findings
The information architecture in it’s former state didn’t focus on applicant’s true needs, and left a lot of users we spoke with unsure how to get started with SBA funding opprotunities. The new site’s content would speak to applicants first, then bring in showcases of awards and more robust search applications for businesses looking for funding.
Ideation
Card sorting and mind maps were an important tool for re-thinking the site’s modernization efforts. We also reviewed individual agency websites for what content they included, and how it helped promote their programs.
Since SBA acted as the clearinghouse for funding opportunities, we met with stakeholders to clarify domain-specific content and policies surrounding the program - this helped with visualizing the landing pages and overall narrative of the site.
Findings
The legacy site had content that could be ported over, but there was a lot still missing for the new site. I learned the importance of understanding the policy-driven aspects of the program or service you’re designing for: you can’t navigate complexity and create useful designs without becoming well-versed in the nomenclature and non-technical aspects of a product.
Constraints definitely existed around available content for certain programs, we needed to figure out who the content owners were and what would be needed to tell the SBIR-STTR story. We also decided to do data visualizations in Tableau and tap into our complex APIs for powering search, both of which would test our technical stack but utlimately deliver on the modernization effort.
Design
SBA had a recent agency-wide branding overhaul. A goal from the client was ensuring all new assets created for the SBA website matched, but was also compliant with the U.S. Web Design System. The client put a lot of emphasis on this because with the lack of cohesive design in the legacy site, user trust had been eroded since it also looked “dated”.
Findings
We would have a robust design system to work with, but from the ground up added consisten design patterns to the new Drupal instance for the site. Data visualizations, illustrations, dynamic search components, and other modern features would be top priority to earn back user trust and show this was an authoritative resource for the SBIR-STTR programs.
Mobile design considerations were at the forefront of our choices as well, including how these complex search applications would perform on smaller screens and layout configurations to tackle pages with a lot of dynamic content.
Development
Working with developers we upgraded the site from an old Drupl 7 instance to Drupal 10. Templating languages would be leveraged to create re-usable templates and improve the site authoring experience for our clients without the need to code. We identified the content needs and what typically gets updated month-to-month, and gave them a new design system to work with.
Findings
USWDS made the design system building process easy and intuitive, creating a language used across the site that now ensures consistent margins, paddings, and dimensions for visual repetition coupled with the new SBA branding. To better integrate with the needs of a large design system, I built a Gulp 4 instance that compiles assets and reduces developer time when there’s requests for new features.