The UX of Storytelling

UX Case Study: Immigrant Women in Business

IWB is a Toronto based not-for-profit organization focussed on helping new female immigrants establish and succeed in the corporate world of business. The founding members are all highly accomplished and powerful women who wish to empower other women by sharing their own struggles, successes and networks with them. What sets IWB apart from any other similar organization is their collaborative and supportive spirit.

Through my research I wanted to really understand the journey of an immigrant women. I wanted to be able to put myself in her shoes and feel what it must of been like to come to a completely differnt country and build a whole new life and career there. Doing in depth interviews was the only way to getting that level of understanding into someone’s experience.

In total is conducted 11 interviews that each lasted 30–60 minutes. They consisted of 2 Board of Directors, 4 Founding Members, 2 Millenial Leaders, and 3 immigrant business owners who were unaware of IWB.

(1) The Energy of IWB

At the end of my interviews with the existing members of IWB there was one resounding theme I was left with, and that was one of ‘giving’. The women at this organization are not only successful but unremarkably passionate about empowering other women. They never expect anything in return for but just want to pass on their knowledge.

The powerhouse of the entire organization is the CEO & Founder Svetlana Ratnikova. When I asked the question “What motivated you to stay with IWB and become member?” there wasn’t a single person who didn’t mention Svetlana’s name. Svetlana’s energy, success, and genuine giving nature inspired every women that spoke to her. Svetlana set out a mission to change lives and that is exactly what she is doing through IWB.

What makes IWB different from any other non profit out there is there focus collaboration. Many of the women I interviewed stated the reason they didn’t like other similar non-profits were that it felt very much like a shark tank. Everybody there were solely focused on how themselves. “How can I get a job?” “How can this person help me?”

However, at IWB everyone there was never looking for something for themselves. It was just a room full of amazing women and purely wanted to share their knowledge and empower other women. It created an atmosphere that was extremely welcoming and encouraged collaboration over anything else.

I then consolidated all the research into a user persona representing what a typical user of the IWB website may look like.

To read about the UI design process for this website by my partner Priya Bhasin please click the link below.

During testing to put more focus on how people browsed the website. Therefore, I opted to not give specific tasks to test the website. I started with asking the users what their existing knowledge of IWB was, if any, and with that knowledge start browsing the website while explaining what they were seeing.

When watching users I focused on how people navigated the website, if their understanding of the different pages were what was intended and if they were by the end of it land and understand ‘Join Us’ page to buy a membership.

At the end of each testing I also asked what they thought IWB represented to ensure that the feeling of collaboration and giving were showcased efficiently.

From testing there were 2 major changes that needed to be made.

1. Core Membership Benefits

There are 4 main benefits when signing up to become an IWB member. I asked tester to explain what each benefit entailed they all got confused as to what ‘Career Re-Training Support’ was. Most assumed is was a series of workshops provided to help upgrade skills. However, in actuality, it referred to the support women you have professional qualifications abroad that don’t meet Canadian regulation get retrained in Canada so they can continue working in that field. Therefore, I changed the title to “Transitional Study Support” which testers understood immediately.

2. ‘The Impact’ Page

(1) ‘The Impact’ page was a collection of true stories centred around the women of IWB. The stories touch on many different topics to escaping a corrupt nation to starting a new life in Canada to facing the challenges of being a women in business. Because there can be so many stories on one page testers found it overwhelmingly to simply browse as they felt there was way to filter the stories to what they may be looking for. For this reason, I decided to add a search bar so users are looking read a story centred around a specific topic can do so with ease.

(2) Initially, because there would be many stories I broke them down into categories that a typical user would want to read about. (The categories chosen were based on the research from earlier) When users reached these sections they were still confused on what each section was about. Therfore, I decided to add subtitles that are more straight forward about what types of stories are in each section.

To see our full prototype please click the link below.

Working with a women empowerment non-profit has always been something that is close to my heart even before starting the project. I have come to learn that this organization is truly one of a kind and to be able to redesign their website in order to grow the amazing network of ladies is something I take pride in.

The remarkable UI coupled with the seamless user experience made for IWB’s website to be not only memorable but impactful; the motto of the IWB itself.

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