U.S. Department of Education
The goal of this project was to reorganize, redesign, and build a fully responsive website for the Department of Education to improve usability, accessibility and overall user experience.
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To achieve this, focus was applied to:
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UI Analysis & User Research: Evaluated the existing site and identified key usability challenges.
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Information Architecture: Restructured content to create clearer navigation and logical flow.
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Lo-Fi Wireframing & Testing: Explored layout options and validated user interactions early in the process.
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Hi-Fi Prototyping & Style Development: Designed polished, accessible interfaces reflecting modern design standards.
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Interactive Design: Implemented dynamic elements to enhance engagement and ease of use.
To promote student achievement and prepare learners for global competitiveness by fostering educational excellence and ensuring equal access for all. Guided by this mission, the project focused on creating a more inclusive, user-friendly, and accessible digital experience that supports students, educators, and families in achieving educational success.
Mission Statement
Proto-Persona
To begin, we developed a hypothesis about potential users of the Department of Education website. Given the breadth of available information, we identified Amy Anderson, a mother with children in two different grade levels, as a representative user persona.
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Amy may visit the site to:
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Research student loan and grant opportunities
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Find information on federal college funding
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Access resources related to K–12 education
This persona helped us focus our design decisions on creating a clear, accessible, and intuitive experience for parents navigating a wide range of educational resources.
Heuristic Evaluation
We conducted a heuristic evaluation of the Department of Education website and identified several usability challenges. The site’s complex navigation and lack of clear content chunking contributed to an overwhelming and inefficient user experience, making it difficult for visitors to find key information quickly.
Usability Testing
We expanded our user task scenarios to reflect actions Amy might complete across the main navigation tabs—Student Loans, Grants, Law & Data. This broader approach provided deeper insight into overall site usability and navigation patterns. We then synthesized user feedback and focused on prioritizing the most critical usability issues to guide our redesign strategy.
Web Annotation
Insights from our usability tests reinforced our initial heuristic evaluation and were documented for reference throughout the redesign process. The primary issues identified included:
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Uninspiring visual presentation that reduced engagement
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Limited information discoverability, making it difficult for users to locate key content
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Excessive links and cluttered navigation, contributing to cognitive overload and confusion
These findings directly informed our design priorities, focusing on improving visual hierarchy, simplifying navigation, and enhancing overall user engagement.
Navigation Testing
We conducted navigation-focused usability tests and found that users were overwhelmed by the site’s structure and terminology. Many participants struggled with confusing navigation labels, excessive menu options, and the use of acronyms and jargon, which prevented them from completing simple tasks efficiently.User Feedback Highlights:“First impression of the site: there’s a lot of nastiness — just a lot to look at.”“Well... it’s not very great.”“The whole site is irritating.”These insights emphasized the need for simplified navigation, plain language, and clearer information architecture to create a more approachable and user-friendly experience.
Card Sorting
With an abundance of links and extensive jargon across the site, this stage of the process was highly iterative and strategy-driven. I carefully restructured categories, simplified terminology, and consolidated content to create a more intuitive and streamlined site map. These updates aimed to ease navigation, improve content discoverability, and reduce cognitive load for users exploring the redesigned website.
Home Page Wireframes
Each main category now features organized drop-down menus that reveal related links on hover, allowing users to easily explore connected content without overwhelming the page.
Moodboards
Inspiration for the redesigned site came from bright, engaging colors and imagery that align with the Department of Education’s mission. The visual design was crafted to evoke excitement for learning and promote inclusivity, creating an uplifting, student-centered experience that supports all learners and reflects the organization’s commitment to educational excellence.
Building on the refreshed visual direction, I developed high-fidelity desktop and mobile prototypes that bring the redesigned Department of Education website to life. Both versions feature bright, engaging colors and inclusive imagery that reflect the organization’s mission to foster educational excellence and equal access.
The responsive layouts ensure usability and accessibility across devices, while improved navigation, simplified content structure and intuitive drop-down menus create a consistent and user-friendly experience for all audiences.
Desktop & Mobile Prototypes
Conclusion
The Department of Education website contains a vast amount of information, much of which leads users to third-party sources—making navigation difficult and key content hard to locate. Users expressed a strong desire for a clean, easy-to-use site with clear organization and minimal clutter.
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To achieve this, categories should be clarified and simplified, with content grouped logically through effective chunking and prioritization based on the most frequently sought information. Additionally, content and copywriting should be refined to align with the Department’s brand voice and improve readability, ensuring information is accessible, engaging and easy to understand for all audiences.