University Bible Fellowship

Solution

Build a responsive website that provides new and current Young Disciple Christian Fellowship members updates, events, content, and bible study opportunities.

I conducted some preliminary research to build a better understanding of the product space. Getting inspiration from other websites while simultaneously learning about the subject matter helped me brainstorm ideas for the project.

Joining a new team means there is a ton of context I do not have. I coordinated a meeting between the client and developer to understand project requirements and be updated on the already defined specifications. I needed to learn more about the target audience and the group members' motivations, behaviors, and pain points.

Who are the key stakeholders, and what do we want to know about them?

I led and conducted meetings with the team to define project goals for stakeholders.

User Need Statement

The Pastor of the Young Disciple Christian Fellowship needs a way to update the website’s messages, events, and blogs efficiently. The Pastor also requires some pages to update automatically without manual entries. In addition, the Pastor should be able to receive questions or messages from visitors of the website.

Group members of the University Bible Fellowship need a way to conveniently explore group events, check updates and join group bible studies and services.

Students of Ryerson should understand what the UBF Young Disciple Christian Fellowship group stands for, gain interest, and decide whether or not they would like to participate.

Scope

• Design a responsive website with the following pages
• Home Page
• About
• Message
• Events
• Blogs
• Daily Bread
• Contact
• Create design system components for development
• Additional Features
• Light and Dark Mode variations
• It must be easy to upload content
• Automatic updating content

Though the University Bible Fellowship had some brand identity, The Young Disciple Christian Fellowship did not have an existing brand identity. I met with the client Charles to grasp a better understanding of their brand identity. During our meeting, I asked the client to list ten words that he believes best describe the UBF Young Disciple Christian Fellowship group; he listed the following words

• Happiness
• Love
• Fellowship
• Ministry
• Christian
• Discipleship
• Community
• Mentoring
• University
• Jesus

I created a visual identity moodboard to help inspire design ideas and further connect with what UBF stands for.

The Young Disciple Christian Fellowship is an organization held at Ryerson University. The client requested that the colour palette should reflect this. In addition to the Ryerson Blue and the Ryerson Yellow, I drew more colour inspiration from the moodboard and created a style guide for the website.

Selecting a typeface for the website was challenging. I wanted the font to reflect a biblical and classical style, so I conducted some research on bible fonts. I decided to select “Cardo” as the primary typeface for the UBF Young Disciple Christian Fellowship website. This font was appropriate because it is specifically designed for the needs of classicists, Biblical scholars, medievalists, and linguists.

After several iterations and meetings with the client and developer, I finalized the design to hand off to the developer to ship! I created a handoff document that included all interactions, edge cases, and other notes about the behavior of features.

Product Link: ryersonubf.com

After passing the handoff document to the developer, the Ryerson UBF website was finalized and shipped on March 1st, 2022. The design system created can be implemented for future iterations or changes by the developer. In addition, the client can easily manage and make updates to the website.

Key Learnings

• Feedback is fuel: Throughout the design process, I received feedback from the client, users, developer, and fellow designers. It’s important to feel comfortable showing my work even at early stages.
• Clarity over consistency: As the product designer, I had to make several design decisions in a short period of time. Whenever it came to design decisions, it was essential to maintain consistency but to prioritize clarity as that is most significant for users.
• Embrace the non-traditional design path: There were many times I questioned my design decisions. Thanks to my mentor and team, I learned to not succumb to self-limiting beliefs, that no design is perfect, and to trust the process.