Audience Interviews Help Dictate User Paths and Homepage Design

YouthLink is a nonprofit organization located in the Twin Cities striving to help homeless youth find short and long-term stability. After seeking a grant to update their website, YouthLink teamed up with ArcStone to design and build a new web platform to reach young people in the Minneapolis area.

Like any website redesign, understanding each of the target audience(s) is the first step to defining and building the content. When first meeting with the YouthLink team, however, it became clear to us that we needed to dive deeper into the mindset of the young people who reach out to YouthLink for help. In order to understand their thought process, we conducted interviews with those who have used or are currently using YouthLink's services.

In the initial discovery phase of the redesign, the ArcStone staff interviewed several young people, asking questions such as:

Where did you first hear about YouthLink and how did you reach out?
How do you currently use the website?
What resources and information would you find most helpful on the site?
What websites and social media networks do you use?

Interviews were also conducted with staff, donors and volunteers to gain an understanding as to how they think the nonprofit should be conveyed online. These interviews were recorded and transcribed for our marketing and design teams to utilize throughout the sitemap, wireframing and design process.

One interesting content portion that was debated throughout the project was the main navigation items targeted towards those looking to volunteer/donate and those young people who need help now.

Youthlink was able to involve young people throughout the redesign process in order to receive their feedback. Eventually the decision was made to use ‘Get Involved’ and ‘Get Help Now’ to define clear paths for the two very distinct audiences.

The final project has resulted in a beautiful website that uses strong imagery and navigational elements to successfully reach all audiences.

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