Domestic Violence Action Center

Domestic violence action center is a non-profit that is committed to ending domestic violence and other forms of abuse. I work for them on their web audit project.

Business Problem

The client was planning a web redesign project, but they didn't know the focus areas. They would like my help to conduct a web audit to identify problems and opportunities.

Timeline

Reports Handed-off: May 2016
Duration: 1.5 months

Team

I was the only designer working with the CEO and her coordinator

Methods

247 web usability guidelines (Dr. David Travis)
Nielsen Heuristic Evaluation

Evaluate Process

I evaluated the website by using two methods:
1) 247 web usability guidelines
2) Nielsen Heuristic Evaluation

Step 1: To understand the website's strengths and weaknesses, I used the web usability scoring system of Dr. David Travis to measure different areas of the website.

Top Findings:

1) The website did a good job on Trust and Credibility, and Homepage.
2) The website was not task-oriented that it didn't have a lot of interactions to help users to complete tasks.
3) Page layout and visual design need to be improved because the website lacked visual design elements and had too many texts.

Step 2: To get more detailed findings on the violations of usability heuristics, I conducted a heuristic evaluation on all the pages of the site.

Top Findings:

1) In total, 22 violations were found on DVAC website. 
2) Encoring the finding in the radar chart, consistency and standards, and aesthetic and minimalist design are the two heuristics that get violated most.

Step 3: To make sure the report is useful and actionable, I came up with design recommendation for every issue/violation I documented.

The usability reports provided future direction for website redesign with improved user experience.

169

Guideline check items

36+

Webpages

47

Pages of documentation

54

Recomendations

Reflection

1. Design guidelines can only get you so far. It would be nice if I conduct some user activities to understand the context and get their feedback. (But I know the target audience of this site might be a little bit hard to get.)

2. The website has a lot of webpages. It would be interesting to do card sorting or tree testing to validate the navigation/structure of the site.

3. Accessibility should be a top focus of this type of website which supports domestic violence victims.