Pioneering a Network: Designing an Online Community for Veterinarians
Creating concepts and prototypes for a knowledge-sharing and networking website for veterinarians
Project Overview
I took on the exciting challenge of creating a prototype concept for MightyVet, an innovative online community tailored for tackling some of the unforeseen challenges and mental health issues faced by veterinarians. The primary goal was to design a platform that fostered collaboration, knowledge-sharing, and networking within the veterinary community.
My Role
As a UX designer with two other designers and researchers, I was responsible for various aspects of the end-to-end design process, including information architecture, ideation and wireframing, prototyping, and gathering feedback from potential users.
Objectives
Community Engagement: Develop a user-friendly online space that encourages veterinarians to connect, share insights, and access resources for well-being.
Intuitive Design: Create an intuitive and aesthetically pleasing interface that enhances the user experience and facilitates seamless navigation.
Accessible Resources: Ensure the prototype is responsive across devices, providing veterinarians with access anytime, anywhere.
Challenges
- 1
Sensitive Subject Matter: Veterinarians deal with a lot of unseen issues including depression, mental health, and suicide. It was essential to provide meaningful resources and practice radical empathy.
- 2
Limited Networking Opportunities: Veterinarians lacked a dedicated platform to connect, share experiences, and seek advice from peers on important issues that are a part of the veterinary profession.
- 3
Starting From Scratch: Existing veterinary forums were outdated in terms of design and user experience, hindering user engagement.
Design Process
Problem Definition
In order to design the product that MightyVet wanted, we first had to understand what the usability issues were with the existing MightyVet website and how we could address them with improved user experiences.
To guide our initial research, we asked ourselves three important questions:
How might we emphasize community and mentorship through user experience?
How might we support a broad range of users and make it accessible beyond veterinarians?
How might we connect all the capabilities for the user?
Research
Heuristic Review
We completed a heuristic review of the existing website to identify areas of opportunity for improving the user experience.
Using subjective ratings of different heuristics to get a baseline on overall usability of the site, we concluded that the usability score was 68 out of 100, and there were opportunities to improve the homepage and navigation to make a large immediate impact.
Competitive Analysis
We identified other similar websites and organizations to complete a competitive analysis to understand what other websites were doing and any insightful UX patterns to replicate.
We looked at a number of non-profits and mentorship companies and found various useful bits of information or user flows to test out in our own updated designs.
Affinity Diagramming
We completed a brainstorming session using affinity diagramming to organize the information we had gathered from our previous research and analysis.
We identified a number of groupings based on the usability issues we had seen as well as patterns emerging from the challenges faced by the veterinary community.
Ideation & Conceptualization
Information Architecture
Using what we had learned from our initial research, we began to formulate a more structured plan for how to resolve some of the user experience issues MightyVet needed resolved.
We devised improved information architecture that we believed better organized and fit the mental model of the website users' as far as how different sections of the site should be presented.
Sketching
Before moving on to digital wireframing and prototyping we first completed initial sketches to see how some of the ideas we had might look as rough interface concepts.
Wireframing
To further refine our new user experience for MightyVet, we then moved on the computer to complete initial wireframes to start finalizing our vision.
Visual Design & Prototyping
Design Moodboard
To get an idea of the different visual design updates we wanted to make we created a moodboard that drew influence from other competing websites as well as more modern interface trends.
MightyVet didn't need extensive visual design updates, but they wanted a refresh that brought a more modern appeal to the site.
Log In + Donate Workflows
Two essential workflows that needed updating were the user workflows for logging in and making donations, especially on mobile devices.
We implemented simplified workflows that allowed mobile users the ability to easily log in to their account as well as making donations.
Redesigned User Profiles
We completely overhauled the mentor user profile pages to better reflect the activities and resources that users expected to access on MightyVet.
Important information is displayed including upcoming events and webinars plus personalized goals for completing monthly learning and development goals.
Restructured Mentor Search
The mentorship page for searching and discovering veterinary mentors in your area was completely redesigned and updated with more structured search results and a simplified search experience.
Searchable Webinars & Education Resources
We implemented a brand new page and user experience for webinars and other online educational content.
The existing MightyVet site had multiple disparate links to external resources that lacked a cohesive experience and centralized source for content.
Results & Impact
Impact
We shared our research findings and final proposed prototypes with MightyVet, and our vision and ideas were welcomed and thoughtfully considered.
Ultimately, the complete concept we presented wasn't implemented, and MightyVet has since undergone a number of redesigns. The insights gained from the research and prototyping we completed was invaluable in determining some of the direction and features they eventually implemented on the website.
Reflection
Designing the new UX concept for MightyVet was an inspiring journey that highlighted the transformative impact of technology on fostering connections within the veterinary community. As a UX designer, this project allowed me to contribute to the creation of an innovative platform with the potential to revolutionize how veterinarians connect, collaborate, and share knowledge.
I enjoyed taking a new approach to creative problem-solving as well as working on a multidisciplinary UX team with other designers. It was a great experience undertaking different research methods to inform a digital prototype.
Lessons Learned
Going Slow Can Help You Go Fast: Rather than jumping straight to digital prototypes or solutioning with code, a more thoughtful approach informed by research and user feedback can help you go faster when you're ready to implement your vision
Process Is As Important As Implementation: How you arrive at your end goal or solution to a problem is equally as important as how the solution might be implemented
Future Recommendations
For future design projects, I recommend further refinement based on ongoing user feedback and potential integration with additional tools or resources for veterinary research and collaboration.
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