Employer
Hyde Park Union Church
Role
(Freelance) UX Researcher, Architect
Timeframe
February 2019 - July 2019
The Challenge
Hyde Park Union Church
Hyde Park Union Church is a church located near the University of Chicago, in Chicago, Illinois. The church has been in the city for decades, serving the community and people around it.
Besides being a building for church, the space is shared and used by other diverse organizations and programs, such as Alcoholic Anonymous, Hyde Park School of Dance, and the Korean United Methodist Church.
The church is currently being led by co-pastors, Veronica Johnson and Sarah Lusche.
The Problem
Declining Younger Demographic
HPUC’s current demographic mostly consists of an older age group (45+ years old). The younger demographic (under 30) has been coming in and out, as the headcount has been inconsistent. The pastors of HPUC believe that a rebrand of the website could help draw the younger demographic back into their church.
2. Information Overload
HPUC’s website consisted of pages that required users to scroll through long pieces of information.
The header had 6 category pages, and under each category there were a total 18+ different sub-category pages.
The Original Website
Site Map
6 category pages, 18 sub-category pages
Top Navigation
One of 13 Sub-Category Pages
Home Page
A lot of information/content for a church homepage
The Goal
Rebrand the Website to give it a modern layout and design.
2. Reduce and reorganize all information into its perspective category.
3. Empathize w/ Users and understand what they’re looking for in a church website
Understanding The Problem
Empathizing with Current & Future Users
To understand what a user is looking for when looking for a church or looking at a church website, I decided to recruit 2 groups of people; 4 Hype Park Union Church members and 3 Christian non-members.
When recruiting interviewees, I also wanted racial diversity and age be a factor, in order to get a diversified pool of people.
User Interview Insight
Information Architecture
In order to help reduce and reorganize all information on the website, it was very important for me to understand the original website’s architecture.
By utilizing and creating site maps, I was able to understand the website structure as a whole and create a condensed architecture for the new site.
Old Site Map
New Site Map
Rebranding/Restructuring The Website
Weebly
HPUC has been using Weebly to host and create their church website. I advise my client to either stay with Weebly or attempt to use another website-building platform, such as Squarespace.
As the church was still in the middle of their website contract with Weebly, my client and I decided it was best to stay with their current website platform and continue to build off of there.
As a website-building platform, this restricted me as a designer since I was only able to redesign the website under Weebly’s website editor.
User Testing
The same way I did the user interviews, I used Google Hangout to have my users walkthrough the new, rebranded HPUC website.
User Testing Insight
Finished Website & Next Steps
This freelance project concluded in July of 2019. Any updates or changes made to the HPUC website has been made without my feedback as a designer.
Key Highlights/Changes
Total pages has been reduced from 18 to 10 sub-category pages
All Content has been updated
Updated photos
Video banner for the homepage