

U.S. Department of Energy
Government Website Redesign
MY ROLE: UI & IA Analysis and UI Design
TIMELINE: 5 Weeks
The Problem
While U.S. Dept. of Energy website is a wealth of information for everyone from consumers to businesses of many different industries, users navigating the site to find the information they seek find it challenging and time consuming leading to frustration and confusion.
How might the information architecture be reorganized to design a better navigation so that users can efficiently find the information they seek?
Objectives
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Reorganize website information architecture.
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Redesign user interface.
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Create Responsive Desktop & Mobile website.
RESEARCH
Proto-Persona
Gerald, an Electrical engineer by trade, seeks to reduce his energy costs. He's curious about adding solar panels to his home but isn't sure about what types of rules and regulations there are. He visits the Energy.gov website to learn more, but finds himself overwhelmed with trying to navigate the site and when he tries to search he finds so many articles he isn't sure where to start.

Heuristic Analysis & Redline Annotations
To get a better understanding of Gerald's frustrations and gain a better understanding of the site, a heuristic analysis was conducted and redlined annotations of current site issues and suggested recommendations to assist with the redesign.

User Path
Now knowing Gerald's frustrations, a user task was defined to conduct usability tests to see if other users had similar issues while navigating and searching for information on solar panels. To make the test more direct, an article titled "Planning a Home Solar Electric System" was chosen as the end goal.

Usability Tests
5 usability tests were conducted with 3 out of 5 testers unable to successfully complete the navigation task to the specified page with out any assistance. Users were left confused as there are many different articles about solar panels that finding the right one quickly was challenging.

Many of the insights users had with their pain points are similar as to what was discovered during the heuristic analysis.





IDEATION
Navigation
After having done usability tests and noticing that navigating the task was challenging, redline annotations were completed for the navigation bar to see where improvements could be made so that Gerald can better navigate

Some of the takeaways from the redline annotations include:​