CULTURE READY
Culture Ready’s mission is to expand cultural awareness and language expertise among members of the armed forces and U.S. Government employees to ensure defense readiness and create a workforce ready to serve 21st century national security needs. Through training and resources that nurture culture learning, CultureReady empowers people to engage with other cultures in ways that foster mutual respect and understanding.
THE CHALLENGE
Culture Ready needed a website migration from D8 to D9. Culture Ready existed as a warehouse of training materials and links that customers found difficult to find and navigate. It also failed to meet accessibility guidelines, meaning many people were unable to use the site at all. We needed to gain a better understanding of the current customer and what brought them to the site, and of Culture Ready. Doing so would enable us to develop and deliver a customer-centered experience, for current military users and customers beyond.
THE SOLUTION
With an array of customer research and data that our team collected, we were able to build personas and user stories based on actual people and their real-life needs. This deeper understanding of Culture Ready customers then informed the development of a comprehensive strategy, which included establishing a Culture Ready brand position, a new brand identity, content strategy and a social media plan.
THE RESULTS
A plain language, accessible, and easy-to-navigate website, firmly based on customer needs, which helps the military and the new targeted audience, college students, find the training and tools they need every month to learn, explore and expand their knowledge of cultures outside of the US. In addition, a design system to globalize design elements was created. The result was a complete update of the brand using an atomic design approach. The brand now uses best practice standards, such as accessibility requirements, contrast compliance, 21st Century IDEA properties, and a mobile-first design structure.
A SNAPSHOT OF THE PROCESS
SITE AUDIT
Before beginning the process of the brand refresh, we ran the old site through a site grader tool. We did this as one of our first points of discovery because, the site was and still is, the main point of interaction with users and customers. These results gave us good insight as how to possibly move forward not only with the site, but also the brand.
Next, we took a closer look at the visitor paths. These revealed a few key take-aways.
1. People come to the site primarily through Google and other search engines. This meant it was important to continually optimize for search and boost other promotion methods such as email and social media.
2. Blogs were important windows into the site. Optimize blogs. The blogs did not lead users anywhere else on the page. We needed to give visitors a clear and persuasive CTA on each blog, as well as present them with more content to explore. Get them to explore other training and other resources they might need.
3. Homepage was an effective landing page, sending visitors to a variety of secondary pages. We needed to make sure that those were the pages we wanted visitors to access. We also needed to make sure that those pages featured and promoted content and resources that were most valuable, and to ensure that those pages gave users what they needed, quickly and easily.
4. Internal Search was widely used. We needed to test the search functionality and optimize it based on the results. Functionality was overly simple and optimization was key.
DESIGN AUDIT
Through the design audit, the team compiled all existing pages, templates, components and any and all design elements that were used on the site. Research based on competitors and relative agencies for design inspiration were also gathered, evaluated and discussed with the client for feedback and direction.
IA STRUCTURE & WIRE FLOWS
The team interviewed users and the clients to gain feedback on the current site and generate potential user pools from this data. Using the developed user persona’s, the team explored the current setup of the site and iterated different potential flows through exercises such as: card sorting, user flows, and IA structure setup.
WIREFRAMES
With the foundation of the website generated, the team was able to rapidly prototype using general templated pages to get a view of functionality and how the site would function.
DIGITAL MARKETING STRATEGY
Through a competitive analysis of similar sites, we evaluated how effectively CultureReady’s website and social media accounts work together to bring users to the site. We also categorized different types of content that existed on the site, discerning which ones are attracting users and which ones are not. Using this analysis as a basis, we recommended marketing strategies to help CultureReady reach its audience more effectively.
This included expanding Culture Ready’s audience to the higher education community. The new content needed to be captivating and newsworthy. It also needed be interactive, with the goal of creating a community and a two-way channel of communication between CultureReady and its audience. We also determined the tone of the new content should be more relaxed, suited to the new audience we were seeking to attract.
DESIGN
Strong brands invite and create trust, and a deeper connection at every touchpoint along the customer journey.
Agency:
Bixal, Virginia U.S.A.
My Role & Responsibilities:
Creative Direction, Brand Strategy, Customer Experience, Ideation, Communication, Leadership
Team Credits:
Tia Calloway, Brand Work, UI & UX Design
Kelsey Wilbon, UI & UX Design
Natalie Halpern, Content Strategy, Copy Writing
Alex Grego, Content Strategy
Jeff Fortune, Front-End
Chris Church, Front-End
John Shortess, Back-End