User interface and user experience (UI/UX) designer is one of the most popular job titles in the technology industry. UI/UX designers tend to enjoy the challenges associated with creating products that people love. Industry leaders know that design is a substantial competitive advantage, and they are competing for best talents; therefore, the demand for designers is high.
UI/UX design requires the understanding of core design principles, tools, and best practices. Having foundational principles of design and design techniques, such as design thinking, gives you a mindset required to create an effective user experience. You are also able to conduct user research that gives you a better understanding of the problem space and eventually leads you to communicate your designs and best practices to users through prototyping.
This task allows you to showcase your problem-solving skills, how you plan to manage and maintain this project, and which strategies you will implement for search engine optimization (SEO).You will evaluate the provided “Paradigm Pet Professionals Website” in the Web Links section and the attached “Paradigm Pet Professionals UI Design Specifications.” You will develop plans to create information architecture for various user personas and stakeholder needs while adhering to accessibility standards. You will also develop a maintenance plan that includes SEO and consideration of a future mobile-friendly web page design.
You were recently hired as a UI/UX Designer for Synesthor, an IT services company that offers on-site consultation for small businesses without an IT department. Synesthor recently contracted with Paradigm Pet Professionals, a company that specializes in providing virtual consultations to pet owners with state-of-the-art, evidence-based health and well-being information. Its website was designed by a part-time intern 10 years ago. Most people who visit the website are prospective and new pet owners located in the United States who seek information about basic pet care and are interested in speaking with a consultant. Paradigm Pet Professionals contracted with Synesthor’s UI/UX department to develop a responsive website to meet the needs of its company and the needs of users.
Your first task is to evaluate the existing website and user design specifications provided by Paradigm Pet Professionals (see Web Links and Supporting Documents sections). You will also develop a sitemap, wireframe, and maintenance plan for the redeveloped website.
Your submission must be your original work. No more than a combined total of 30% of the submission and no more than a 10% match to any one individual source can be directly quoted or closely paraphrased from sources, even if cited correctly. The similarity report that is provided when you submit your task can be used as a guide.
You must use the rubric to direct the creation of your submission because it provides detailed criteria that will be used to evaluate your work. Each requirement below may be evaluated by more than one rubric aspect. The rubric aspect titles may contain hyperlinks to relevant portions of the course.
Tasks may not be submitted as cloud links, such as links to Google Docs, Google Slides, OneDrive, etc., unless specified in the task requirements. All other submissions must be file types that are uploaded and submitted as attachments (e.g., .docx, .pdf, .ppt).
A. Using the attached “Paradigm Pet Professional UI Design Specifications” and existing “Paradigm Pet Professionals Website” from the Web Links section, compare the content, functionality, and navigation of the current website to user specifications and evaluate audience and stakeholders needs by doing the following:
1. Describe how the current website content fails to meet audience and stakeholder needs.
2. Describe how the current website functionality fails to meet audience and stakeholder needs.
3. Describe how the current navigation system fails to meet audience and stakeholder needs.
B. Determine the information architecture for the new website based on the attached “Paradigm Pet Professional UI Design Specifications” by doing the following:
1. Explain the necessary website functionality and micro interactions needed to meet audience and stakeholder needs.
2. Describe the type of content that will be used for one new page based on one of the new user personas, including how the elements of the content align directly to the chosen user persona.
3. Identify existing content from the website that will be removed or redeveloped and explain how that content fails to meet the proposed audience and stakeholder needs.
4. Create a visual sitemap to determine the structure and the hierarchy of the site content, including the following:
• a home page
• a page for each existing pet page
• a new page for the new user persona you identified in part B2
Note: You can use any tool to create the sitemap, such as graphic creation or manipulation software, presentation software, word processing software, or another tool of your choice. The sitemap must be submitted as an image embedded within your document.
5. Explain how your information architecture meets audience and stakeholder needs.
6. Explain the primary and secondary navigational elements required to support the information architecture.
a. Explain how these primary and secondary navigational elements each align with audience and stakeholder needs.
C. Determine page layout by creating a mid-fidelity wireframe for the home page that is sized for a desktop website that includes each of the following:
• site header, including the branding elements
• site footer
• primary and secondary navigational elements
• placeholder text and placeholder images
• specific components needed to support the information architecture (e.g., buttons, links, form fields, search bar)
Note: You can use any tool to create the wireframe, such as graphic creation or manipulation software, presentation software, word processing software, or another tool of your choice. The wireframe must be submitted as an image embedded within your document.
D. Develop a detailed maintenance plan for the responsive website that aligns with stakeholder needs outlined in the attached “Paradigm Pet Professional UI Design Specifications,” include one maintenance task for each of the following:
• efforts to ensure universal accessibility to all site content
• the relationship between written content and SEO
• tasks required to properly maintain the website
• plan for rendering the website on desktop and mobile devices
• SEO strategies for mobile devices
E. Demonstrate professional communication in the content and presentation of your submission.
File Restrictions
File name may contain only letters, numbers, spaces, and these symbols: ! – _ . * ‘ ( )
File size limit: 200 MB
File types allowed: doc, docx, rtf, xls, xlsx, ppt, pptx, odt, pdf, csv, txt, qt, mov, mpg, avi, mp3, wav, mp4, wma, flv, asf, mpeg, wmv, m4v, svg, tif, tiff, jpeg, jpg, gif, png, zip, rar, tar, 7z
