Alternative Fall Break

Overview

During Alternative Fall Break, I led a team of four students to conduct rapid heuristic evaluations for two Detroit-based partners, including a small business and a nonprofit organization. Each partner came to us with a distinct set of digital challenges, and my role was to guide the team through the evaluation, client communication, and delivery of actionable recommendations. Although the project was short in duration, our structured approach and collaborative process led both clients to express strong satisfaction with the clarity and usefulness of our feedback.

My Role

As team lead, I:
• Facilitated client conversations
• Structured the evaluation workflow
• Assigned team responsibilities
• Guided design discussions
• Synthesized insights
• Ensured our recommendations were grounded in sound UX principles while staying digestible for non-design audiences.

Client Project 1: Improving User Flow

Situation

The first partner wanted support refining key user pathways across their business website. They were especially focused on making the checkout experience more seamless, since customers often struggled to navigate the steps leading to purchase. They asked us to evaluate several core pages to understand where friction occurred and how the overall flow could be improved.

Task

Evaluate four essential pages using heuristic principles to identify usability issues impacting navigation, clarity, and checkout efficiency.

Actions

I opened with a focused conversation to understand the client’s goals and the specific challenges their customers faced. Our team spent two hours reviewing the pages, documenting pain points, and aligning on design priorities. I led collaborative discussions to generate layout sketches that improved visual hierarchy, guided users more effectively toward checkout, and clarified calls to action. We presented short-term and long-term recommendations in a way that felt actionable and accessible to the client.

Results

The client found the feedback highly useful, sharing that our evaluation helped them better understand where customers were getting lost and provided a clear roadmap for improving their checkout flow.

Client Project 2: Strengthening Credibility & Content Organization

Situation

The second partner sought guidance on reorganizing website content to strengthen credibility and streamline information. They were particularly concerned about redundant or low-quality content that weakened the message they wanted to convey.

Task

Conduct a heuristic evaluation of two pages and identify structural and content-related improvements that would support trustworthiness and clarity.

Actions

After a conversation with the client to understand their communication goals, I paired team members to review pages in depth. I facilitated a discussion on how to deliver feedback both verbally and visually, emphasizing client-friendly language. To help the client picture the changes, I guided the team in constructing low-fidelity sketches using sticky notes to reorganize sections and propose clearer information flows. We compiled short-term fixes and strategic recommendations for long-term redesign.

Results

The client expressed high appreciation for the feedback, particularly the visual sketches, which they said made it much easier to articulate next steps to their design collaborators.

Takeaways

This project strengthened my understanding that effective UX consulting requires both expertise and empathy. Knowing design principles, accessibility guidelines, and good information architecture is essential, but the ability to communicate insights without overwhelming clients is equally important. I learned to pace feedback, affirm existing strengths, use visual tools like sticky-note sketches to convey ideas quickly, and tailor my language to each client’s comfort level. This balance made our recommendations not only sound but also actionable.