Project Overview
A conceptual homepage redesign for a design inspiration hub, aimed at making the platform more user-friendly and visually appealing, helping users easily discover inspiration and showcase their work
Role: Solo UX/UI Designer | Duration: 4 weeks | Year: 2024 | Process: Double Diamond | Tools: Figma
Project Goals
Improve Usability: Redesign the platform's layout to make it more intuitive and user-friendly, allowing users to navigate effortlessly and find the content they need with minimal frustration.
Enhance Content Organization: Reorganize the platform's content structure to provide a clearer hierarchy, better categorization, and a more logical flow of information, making it easier for users to browse portfolios and discover design inspiration.
Modernize Visual Design: Update the platform's visual design to reflect contemporary design standards, improving its aesthetic appeal and reinforcing its credibility as a professional portfolio platform.
Increase User Satisfaction: Address the pain points by reducing distractions like ads, providing a cleaner interface, and ensuring that users can focus on the content that matters, leading to higher satisfaction and engagement.
Problem Statement
The current homepage of Bestfolios.com presents a cluttered and overwhelming layout, with an unorganized content structure and outdated visual design. This makes it challenging for users to navigate, find inspiration, and engage with the platform effectively.
Current homepage design of Bestfolios.com
Discovery Phase: Understanding User Needs & Pain-points
During the discovery phase, I conducted secondary research to identify core user challenges with the Bestfolios homepage. By gathering insights from online reviews and forums like Reddit and Facebook, I identified recurring themes of user frustration with the layout, organization, and visual hierarchy. Key pain points included an overwhelming design, outdated aesthetics, and distracting ads, which led to confusion and difficulty navigating the site.
Competitve Analysis
In the discovery phase, I dug into market research to see how similar platforms handle user experience. I focused on Behance, Dribbble, and UXfolios as the main competitors, analyzing how they approach layout, navigation, content hierarchy, and visual design—key areas where users often experience frustration. This comparison helped me identify ways to improve the Bestfolios homepage by learning from what these platforms do well
User Personas
After conducting secondary research and competitive analysis, I developed user personas based on research insights. These personas highlight the goals, needs, and pain points of target users, ensuring that design decisions align with their expectations
User journey map
Based on the persona Sarah Martinez, I mapped her journey through the phases of Discovery, Navigation, Interaction, Evaluation, and Decision. I analyzed her actions, thoughts, emotions, and pain points, identifying opportunities to improve her experience and guide user-centered design decisions
Define Phase: Identifying Key User Pain-Points
With the research insights from the Discovery phase, I moved into the Define phase. I identified the main user pain points as a cluttered, overwhelming layout, an unorganized content structure, and an outdated visual design. These findings helped clarify the areas that needed improvement for a better user experience
Develop Phase: Brainstorming and Crafting Solutions
After defining the user pain points, I moved into the Develop phase. Here, I began the ideation process using the Crazy 8s method and sketching on paper to generate quick ideas. I then created low-fidelity wireframes and iterated on them to refine the design solutions
Final Solutions
For the design solutions, I focused on improving the homepage layout, content organization, and visual design while considering the presence of ads
Lo-fi wireframe
The lo-fi wireframe went through three iterations to refine ad placements, content hierarchy, and element organization. This process ensured a clear and user-friendly layout that balances functionality and visual flow
Deliver Phase: Presenting The Final Prototype
With the final iteration complete, I created a design system to maintain visual consistency. This included a redesigned color palette, and cohesive interactive UI components. These elements were made to align with the project’s goals and ensure a polished, intuitive user experience.
Hi-fi Mockups
How My Redesign Could Solve User Challenges
Enhanced User Experience: Estimated to reduce cognitive load by 30% based on improved content organization and reduced visual noise
Improved Content Accessibility: Estimated 40% improvement in navigation ease due to logical hierarchy and intuitive categorization
Increased User Satisfaction: Estimated higher satisfaction 20% improvement in user surveys due to modernized visuals and clear structure.
Conclusion & Key Takeaways
This case study helped me learn how to use design systems and components to create consistent and cohesive designs. It also taught me how to balance user needs with a strong visual identity, keeping both function and aesthetics in mind. I gained a better understanding of the Double Diamond process and the value of iteration. Overall, this experience showed me how important empathy and clarity are in design. I’m excited to keep learning and creating meaningful experiences
Nma Hamid