As part of my User Experience Design Immersive our project team was tasked with providing a website design and user research for the Make It She, a Chrome extension developed to bring awareness around the under representation of women in media and online content.
PROJECT SCOPE
CLIENT: Make It She is a Google Chrome extension intended to bring awareness to the gender gap in the media and online content.
OBJECTIVE: Develop a website design to share Make It She’s mission and encourages visitors to download the Chrome extension. Find a way to incentivize people to use the extension on ongoing basis, conduct research, provide insights, and recommendations on branding and marketing strategy.
TIMELINE: 3 weeks
PROJECT ROLES: Research & UI / Visual Design
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Make It She - Chrome Extension
By turning the extension on, Make it She enables you to substitute male pronouns, gendered words, and first names with their female equivalent on any webpage. It will also give you the ratio of male versus female presence and allow you to share a pre-written message to via Twitter.
SCREENER SURVEYS & USER INTERVIEWS
We utilized a screener survey to begin our research and received 72 responses. 82.9% of users reported that they use Google Chrome as their main browser and that 45.7% have read articles about gender bias in the past two weeks. Not as promising was the 30.9% of users surveyed that have at least one chrome extension installed, typically an ad blocker.
We utilized a screener survey to begin our research and received 72 responses. 82.9% of users reported that they use Google Chrome as their main browser and that 45.7% have read articles about gender bias in the past two weeks. Not as promising was the 30.9% of users surveyed that have at least one chrome extension installed, typically an ad blocker.
USABILITY TESTING
After our initial survey we felt that we should do some usability testing around the Make It She extension as it currently functions. We conducted six usability tests with users between ages 22–55, who support feminism, gender equality, and those who are not aware or actively engaged.
After our initial survey we felt that we should do some usability testing around the Make It She extension as it currently functions. We conducted six usability tests with users between ages 22–55, who support feminism, gender equality, and those who are not aware or actively engaged.
“It’s rough. I don’t think changing proper nouns from male to female helps anything, it just makes the story confusing.”
Competitive analysis on similar Chrome extensions
Empathy map based on user interviews
MOVING FORWARD
Based on our competitive analysis, market research, screener surveys and user interviews we made the following recommendations to our client. Based on the feedback we received we recommended removing the pronoun changing feature. It not only confused but concerned our users in an current climate where "fake news" is on everyone's mind.
Additional recommendations were made to improve the extension for accessibility and add a link to MakeItShe.com for further information.
Make It She Website Design
At our project kick-off meeting we asked Make It She’s founder what she wanted the brand to convey. She stressed that Make It She is about awareness and female empowerment, not negative towards men, but a tool to raise awareness at all levels of media leadership to promote female voices in equality with their male counterparts.
“I know what it’s not . . . it’s not hard-core feminist or man-hating”
Our group did some branding exercises and came to the conclusion that Make It She wants to convey sincerity in their message, excitement to compel users to engage in advocating for gender equality, and come from a place of competence based on factual information with the goal being friendly but informative, inclusive, and empowering.
I created two mood board concepts based on market research around websites promoting equality for women (UN Women, Equality Now, She Should Run, Women In Media, etc.). The first (below left) having a colorful, friendly color palette with a mix of color and black and white photography with vector infographics. The second (right) had a richer color palette, with statistics shown in bright blocks of color, and only black and white photography. Imagery focused on strong women in leadership roles. Three users tested all preferred the second richer palette - stating they felt it communicated an information backed by research and accurate information and that the first palette felt to "playful".
View the full website design through InVision HERE