As the company's ventures were expanding, they required additional pages on their main website and a hierarchical restructuring of their overall design. Moreover, they had been facing certain backend bugs and slow-speed responses that hindered user retention as found by their data analytics team.

Responsible for the front-end of the website, I made the following key changes while maintaining the pre-existing branding identity.

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Backend UX Solutions

Identifying: After scraping through the data loading amounts and timing of each page, I was able to pinpoint the main cause of slow running to the lack of animation and photo optimization. Another main issue was the embedded Twitter feed I had added in the footer which had incorporated too many plugins from previous web designers. 

Adjustments: Implemented minimal caching plugins to reduce loading time by using static images of the site until any further updates. I replaced heavy load graphics with optimized versions and kept the hover animations intact. Removed unnecessary and outdated Wordpress plugins and reorganized branding features for future designers.

Results: Page speed was changed from 47% to 85% efficiency (typical website avg: 72%). Loading time decreased from 3.6s avg to 2.9s. Page size decreased from 6.2 MB avg to 1.9 MB. Total number of page requests went from 105 to around 60, thereby successfully driving down the difference between user happy paths and average number of clicks. 

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Frontend Redesign

Integrated the About Us page to include Summary and Press pages to highlight recent achievements, partners, and embedded media. Interactive design elements and animations helped tell their company story and fit with their pre-existing homepage design.

Added a new Projects page with a minimalistic carousel featuring key works.

Simplified all contact options and integrated all relevant forms into dropdown menus for easy user access.

Added a comprehensive footer embedding updated social media activity, website navigation, and contact information. Set up a subscription service for email notifications.

Ideation

With this challenge in mind, I developed a two-pronged solution to address both the UI for their new company divisions and the UX of website navigation and speed. Considerations for this design included the extensibility of the backend; editing and adding more elements in the future should be a seamless process in accordance with my newly proposed page hierarchy.