Impact
The Goal
Seattle Central's communications and marketing team came to us with a new project. They wanted to feature student stories with a custom website that would grow with the campaign. We thought it was a great idea. My role was to listen to their needs, guide the visual design process, and create prototypes.
First I wireframed sketches so we could start to see what the content design might look like. We had brainstorming sessions about the content design and what the name of the site would be. Start Your Life's Work was the name of the theme but we needed something short for the url. I said what about "Impact" - and the head writer agreed.
I did a lot of device sizing with Figma. We wanted the pictures to be big and the copy easy to read. I iterated quickly so we could get a feel for how the stories would read depending on window size.
The templates were built for ease of use. Story pages had each content field clearly marked for the admin view. This made building pages simple for communications folks.
The communications team made sure to have the same lighting for each set of stories so the pages and grid looked cohesive.
The stories are impactful, inspiring, and most of all hopeful. We took a device agnostic approach, spent time crafting how they would read on small screens. We wanted the user experience to be enjoyable no matter what.
The site grew and expanded into more of a go-to for feature stories and events. Student Leadership held a mascot redesign contest and did the main communication by posting on the site.
The Outcome
Impact has been a valuable way to feature the true grit of Seattle Central students. And it has proved to be a user friendly structure for writers to quickly post new stories. We continue to add new features as needs arise. My role was to guide the UX, site design, and prototypes.