College of Engineering Unit:
Best Design Beavers (BDB) aims to improve the user experience (UX) of websites for three different clients: REAP, OSU Admissions, and Groome. In addition, to minor changes to improve the overall user experience, we focus on improving these sites through an inclusive design framework. For each client, we identify an underserved population to target and design for. Our goal is to enable the target underserved populations to have an equitable user experience to the mainstream user(s).
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REAP: Designing for BIPOC Users
REAP is a non-profit organization that serves underserved youth in grades K-12 in the Portland area with a mission to promote leadership. One population they specifically aim to support are students of color, especially Black and Brown youth. Our work reevaluates and redesigns their website to optimize it for students of color.
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OSU Admissions: Designing for First-Generation College Students
The OSU website is a hub of information for prospective college students. Our focus was on improving pages related to undergraduate admissions. In this project we researched prospective first-generation college students to decide how to best support these first-generation students on this section of the OSU website.
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Groome: Designing for International Students
The Groome website allows users to book shuttles from several large cities to major airports in the United States. It is a particularly useful service for international students, who often need to fly to get home. Our focus is on improving the shuttle booking process for these international students.
BDB has applied a variety of UX research techniques and frameworks to center underserved users in our work. We adapt the inclusive design framework used by GenderMag and InclusiveMag to redesign websites to support underserved populations while still offering a unified experience for all users. In doing so, we design for a more equitable user experience that also improves the overall site experience.
Our final deliverables for each project will include website redesign proposals in Figma, design justifications, and an evaluation report to enable an inclusive and improved user experience for both mainstream and underserved users.
Project Website(s):
| Attachment | Size |
|---|---|
 BDB Project Poster | 1.61 MB |