project completed while employed at Callahan for Westar Energy
PROJECT WestarEnergy.com Website Redesign
DURATION 12 months
UX DESIGN SERVICES
Westar Energy needed a website update. As Westar was refreshing their overall brand, their current website didn't just need a reskin, it needed a complete overhaul. We evaluated the current site content and structure, implemented an architecture that better organized the abundance of content, and established a more logical hierarchy of navigation. This was the foundation to rebuilding many of the site's sign up forms, and guided us in redefining and simplifying the experience for their users. My role was user experience designer, working with the team to encourage clear, consistent UX decisions throughout the duration of the project.
The information architecture was the key to defining much of the redesign. Because their old website was overwhelming and complicated, the site map had to be revamped and streamlined before anything else. Once the new site map was established, I created a clickable wireframe to demonstrate our proposed ideas for helping the customer sign up for service, locate account information, report an outage, and pay their monthly bill.
information architecture (site map)
My wireframe proposed a complete revamp of the Start, Stop, or Transfer Service sign up forms.
view wireframesMost users come to this website for one of four reasons, so we needed to revamp the top navigation to make it very clear to the customer where to go to complete the tasks they'd come to the site to complete.
As lead UX designer, I collaborated and consulted with the art director and production artist to create usable design layouts. In continual design discussions, we worked to ensure the design was not only beautiful, but also functional.
It was critical that we complete rigorous QA testing for this large corporate website to ensure it was functional for its broad user base. The site needed to be free of issues or glitches, so we implemented extensive QA in order to find and fix any development issues or defects prior to launch. My role was to lead the team in completing the quality assurance testing to identify and document these defects.
Updating the architecture and revamping the sign up forms for the Westar Energy site were two critical steps in the success of redesigning this website. Applying the new brand look and feel to a well-structured and usable site made all the difference in creating a clean, user-friendly, updated website for their audience.
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