UX Research & Design: GenderJust

GenderJust (GJ) is a non-for-profit organization that cultivates conversations in society around complex issues and is dedicated towards the transformation to a more just society. For this project, we worked to understand GenderJust and how their vision, activities, and challenges fit into the larger sphere of organizations they interact with. The goal was to design a website for GenderJust that aligned with the organization's mission and helped to alleviate some of the challenges faced by GenderJust.

My Role

I worked on this project with 2 other classmates as a part of my Masters Program. All three of us pursued ethnographic methods to understand GenderJust and the larger sphere of organizations they interact with.  My role on this project included conducting observations, interviews, and digital ethnographies, conglomerating and analyzing the data gathered, deriving insights about GenderJust and their challenges, and partnering with my classmates to translate these insights into workable solutions.

Research Strategy

We used ethnographic methods, including observations, interviews, and digital ethnographies, to understand the challenges experienced by members of Gender Just and their vision as an organization.

Analysis

I used Stormboard and affinity diagramming techniques to analyze the data gathered from the digital ethnographies, interviews, and observations and pulled the most salient themes for our research. I discussed the insights I derived with my teammates.

Findings

From our analysis, we uncovered several themes related to GenderJust's efficacy as an organization and the community at large. Some of these themes are shown below.

Personas, Service Blueprint

Using the insights gathered from analysis, I created a persona and presented this to Gender Just to help members develop empathy and an understanding of the people they desire to work with. My teammate created a service blueprint to help GenderJust understand and dissect their engagement with the community when organizing events and workshops. I provided input and helped refine the content in the Service Blueprint.

Design: Brand Strategies, Website

As a team, we discussed ways in which we could create a brand strategy to provide GenderJust with a unified web presence. One of my teammates used InDesign to create logos, a style tile for the website, and a presentation template.
 
We individually sketched ideas for a responsive desktop platform and transformed these sketches into wireframes using InDesign. One of my teammates created a website template using Wix.com and we worked together to put together a transition and recommendations document outlining how GenderJust could use the deliverables we provided to excel in their mission.

Outcomes

We presented our findings and designs to GenderJust. GenderJust now uses the website we designed to engage with the larger queer community and partner with other organizations.