Project LITA: Bridging Hearts Through Design

Project Overview

LITA of Contra Costa (Love Is The Answer) is a nonprofit that combats loneliness among seniors and long-term care residents through volunteer visits and community programs.

Our team partnered with LITA to redesign their website as part of a UX/UI bootcamp project. The goal was to improve the user experience, strengthen the organisation’s digital presence, and increase community engagement through volunteerism and donations.

• Conducted stakeholder interviews to define project goals

• Performed competitor analysis to identify industry patterns and opportunities

• Created user journey map to visualize user experience

• Developed sitemap and user flow diagram to structure key interactions

• Sketched early concepts and created paper prototypes for initial testing

• Designed high-fidelity clickable prototype for desktop and mobile

• Integrated A/B testing for the success confirmation page and implemented the version with the highest user satisfaction.

• Ensured accessibility and responsiveness across devices

• Collaborated closely with UX researcher and visual designer throughout the process

Short on time? Get a quick peek at the biggest improvements from our redesign! We've made it more fun and intuitive for users to interact, while capturing the warm, welcoming vibe of LITA. Check out the before-and-after screenshots below to see the transformation or click here to skip ahead to the final solutions and results.

Before

We conducted a detailed survey to understand the motivations and barriers related to donating and volunteering for non-profit organizations. The survey revealed key insights such as the importance of transparency and trustworthiness, the impact of social media presence, and the need for clear communication about fund usage. These findings are crucial for making data-driven decisions and enhancing our strategies to better engage and support our community.

• What are the most essential factors when donating to a non-profit organization?

• What information do you look for before donating?

• What motivates you to volunteer with a non-profit organization?

• Are there barriers that prevent you from donating or volunteering?

People look for "Testimonials" before donating to a non-profit.

People look for "impact stories and transparency reports" before donating to a non-profit.

I interviewed the Director of LITA to gain deep insights into the organization’s mission, challenges, and strategic goals. LITA’s primary focus is improving the quality of life for seniors and disabled individuals living in skilled nursing and healthcare facilities by fostering meaningful community connections through activities such as pet visits, music programs, and gardening. The Director shared key challenges, including the need to modernize an outdated website to better attract local volunteers and donors, difficulties in increasing in-house volunteer participation after COVID-19, and the urgent need to recruit younger board members for sustainable leadership succession. The interview also highlighted LITA’s emphasis on creating engaging volunteer experiences and using storytelling through photos, testimonials, and events, to communicate impact. These insights directly shaped our team’s design priorities and content strategy for the website redesign.

In parallel, I conducted a competitor analysis of similar non-profit websites. This process revealed best practices for building trust, ensuring transparency, and simplifying user interactions. I analyzed three key competitors to identify how they structured their content, highlighted their impact, and guided users toward donations and volunteer opportunities.

The insights I gathered directly informed our team’s approach to content strategy, the design of streamlined donation and volunteer flows, and the overall tone of trust and engagement we aimed to convey in the redesign.

The chart above summarizes my findings and provides a snapshot of both direct and indirect competition.

Based on our combined qualitative and quantitative research, we created a User Persona to guide our design decisions and ensure we were addressing the real motivations and barriers of our target audience.

Additionally, our team developed an Affinity Map and Empathy Map to synthesize key findings and align on user needs and frustrations.

Building on the research insights, I created a User Journey Map to visualize the experience of prospective volunteers and donors.

This process helped us identify key friction points and opportunities to enhance engagement and ease of use.

Sitemap

With a strong understanding of user needs and a clear design direction, we moved into the ideation phase.

I contributed to early sketches of key pages and flows, exploring ways to simplify navigation and improve the emotional storytelling of LITA’s mission.

Building on these initial concepts, we created a Low-Fidelity Prototype to quickly test the layout, content structure, and key interactions. This allowed us to gather valuable feedback early and refine the experience before moving into high-fidelity design.

In the final design phase, we translated our concepts into a high-fidelity clickable prototype using Figma.

I contributed to designing several core desktop pages and mobile wireframes, ensuring visual consistency, accessibility, and a mobile-first experience.

Throughout this phase, we focused on:

• Building trust through clear messaging and transparent design.

• Simplifying the volunteer and donation processes.

• Highlighting LITA’s impact through engaging visuals and storytelling.

The original contact page

To validate our designs, we conducted usability tests and iteratively improved the experience based on user feedback.

Key improvements included:

• Streamlining the donation flow for faster, more intuitive completion.

• Enhancing the visibility of volunteer opportunities.

• Clarifying how LITA’s programs directly benefit seniors.

These iterations helped us refine the user experience and ensure that our final design aligned with both user needs and LITA’s mission.

In addition to usability testing, we also conducted an A/B test to evaluate visual design choices specifically comparing two success screen variations to assess user preference and impact.

Group A

After presenting our design to the stakeholder, she brought us on board to develop the new LITA website. My two teammates run a company called Studiomylo, and I joined them for this project. While building out the site and turning our mock-ups into something real, we noticed that our first design wasn’t doing enough to inspire volunteer sign-ups and donations, so we had to rethink how to make it more impactful.

As we took a closer look, we realized the user experience needed to feel even smoother, guiding people naturally from the moment they arrived on the site to the point where they chose to volunteer or donate. To make that happen, we went back and reworked important pieces of the design, including the branding, color palette, and overall visual identity, so the site felt more inviting and easy to navigate.

OLD LITA WEBSITE

Key Takeaways

This project reminded me how valuable it is to reevaluate design decisions as they come to life in development. What looked strong in our mock-ups didn’t always translate into the smooth, engaging experience we wanted, so we had to adjust and refine along the way. Simplifying flows like sign-ups and donations showed me how even small changes can make a big impact. More than anything, I learned that flexibility, feedback, and iteration are what bring a design closer to both user needs and organizational goals.

This project strengthened my ability to lead a user-centered design process from discovery through final delivery. Now that the case study is part of my portfolio, it stands as an example of how I translate research insights into thoughtful, high-impact design decisions. Moving forward, I am eager to apply these skills to new challenges and continue growing as a designer who builds meaningful and accessible digital experiences.

Every project is a chance to listen, learn, and build solutions that make a real difference.