rootshare.io
UX/UI Designer, Product Management, Branding & Marketing
re-designing the website, user research, & building out new features based on research findings
Company
rootshare.io
Duration
Nov. 2020- Present
My Role
UX/UI Designer
Role Responsibilities
Redesign user interface; analyze needs and wants of student organizations at Purdue University
//about rootshare
Rootshare is a university-focused technology platform for students,
student organizations, alumni, and recruiters to enhance information
distribution, connections, and access to resources.
Rootshare aims to cultivate authentic and targeted interactions between all
users types by utilizing a closed-community concept to simulate real
human interaction and community based engagement while helping
relieve anxiety and stress caused by a separation of in-person and online
interactions.
//branding
At first, I started as the sole UX Designer. I was then asked to take on a marketing role along with UX, and we made a decision to rebrand. I wanted to make sure that our message and our colors represented the company best. I went ahead and created a style guide for myself, the product team, and eventually the new marketing team who came to work with us! I knew that our software would be utilized by college students so I wanted to make sure that our tool was modern, fresh, and eye catching!
If I could go back, I would have thought more about accessibility. Deuteranomaly (Red-Green) is the most common type of color blindness which makes it hard for people to tell the difference between red and green. Eventually, I would love to have an accessibility plugin for our website and app!
//the sign-up process
The original sign-up process was simple. It required an email, university(currently rootshare is partnering with Purdue University), name, and password. Users were also able to login with Google or LinkedIn. A huge issue we noticed was this: if we were going to be this “walled garden” of data, we shouldn’t allow the users to login with these third party tools. From my research and speaking the universities, I found that student data security is HUGE. By allowing these other ways to login, it was a major security risk, so in our update we removed them. Users were sent an email to create a password so they were still able to access their accounts.
//the sign-up process re-designed
Using our new branding, we re-designed the landing page. Above you’ll see the imagery, text, and wording didn’t align with the direction we rootshare was heading. Originally we wanted to be a a place to connect with alumni, but we really needed to narrow our focus on what rootshare’s sole purpose was. After many many MANY discussions, we landed on being able to connect student organizations with current, future, and alumni members! You’ll see we have captured this with a simple landing page.
As I was creating the new sign-up process, I knew we needed to get the most pertinent information if we wanted to be a source of data for the university. I also needed to keep in mind the most pertinent data for our company. This included user type in order to easily identify the type of account that was being created which would help us to separate the different features each user type needs. I wanted to make sure to keep the sign up process as short as possible. The hope is to have this incorporated with Purdue and your account is managed by Purdue data
//ideation & design
After a revamp of the sign-up process, we were ready to modify small things on the live website like the style and colors. We announced a rebrand via social media. This video was actually created by my brother Jake Ledford and directed by me. You can view the video below or on our instagram page here. I made the interface cleaner, added a search bar, recommended communities, and a better notifications center. Not all updated are live so I am including the mockups I have created using Figma below. If you would like to know more about my process and ideation, let’s connect!
home page with a featured banner for an event or call out, featured events of organizations
wireframes depicting a new events layout that is easy for users to learn about an event, view videos by that organization, and join the event
you can see a bit of my reflection and thought process behind the creation of the new events page
we needed to (and are still in the works) create an admin view for those setting up events
a pop up to easily fill out the information about the event
profile page with reflection also included about displaying projects, past work?, our direction has changed so this may never be included
//solution
There were still many, many changes needed to get where we wanted to be and I’d be happy to discuss them more in detail with you. Please reach out!