Intro
LAPD's internal website is a platform that allows the department employees to read about the latest events, announcements, and postings or find other information within the organization. And mutually, is a platform where top-level officers can make their announcements and have their voices heard.
Client: Los Angeles Police Department (LAPD)
Roles: UX/UI Designer, UX Researcher
Tools: Sketch App, Whiteboard, Pen & Paper, Google docs
Platform: Desktop
Problem
There are 2 major challenges with the current design; a. the interface has not been updated for many years and therefore the way the data is presented does not meet the modern-day visual and experiential standards and b. Important announcements need to be displayed at an equal level without one taking precedence over the other.
Design Goal
The goal is to create a clean, modern and yet flexible interface that is suitable for showcasing different types of content that LAPD wants to offer and putting an equal level of highlight on their important announcements.
Proposal
This project has been done in an agile format with very limited access to required resources and the proposal (hi-fidelity wireframe) has been made only based on the current website's screenshots, without accessing the live product due to security measures. Therefore, the news contents have been replaced by Lorem Ipsum for the sake of this portfolio and I am not allowed to share the current look of this internal webpage. However, I am going to point out the major changes that have been made in order to achieve re-design goals.
Hero Image: Hero image space is proposed to showcase the most important news or announcements in the carousel format. This feature solves for high-level contents equality, also the correlating images will add to the visual appeal of the page.
Side Menu: Side menu is suggested to organize the page and categorize the information in a more efficient way. (Note that there is no menu in the current version. All information is scattered over the page similar to a newspaper layout.)
Upcoming Events: According to the data gathered during the stakeholders interview, the majority of the users visit the website for the sole purpose of finding out about the events. As a result, the top middle area of the page is allocated to the calendar, in contrast with its current location which is the bottom right of the page.
Chief's Message: Chief's message is also required to be at the top of the page which already is in the current design, however, a cleaner and more minimal look have been applied to this section.
General Postings: In the current layout general postings are in the list view format which has resulted in a lengthy page and decreased readability due to visually long sentences. In the proposal, however, the grid view is suggested instead to help with the above-mentioned issues and then users can click on each news item to see the content on a secondary page.
Overall, in this new design, the homepage looks much cleaner and organized. Also, the way the information is categorized better caters to both the organization and the users' needs.
At this phase, we are waiting to hear LAPD's initial thoughts and feedback on the proposal and then we will be able to move forward accordingly.
Thanks for reading all the way through and feel free to shoot me an email if you have any questions. :)