Project Overview

This project was completed as a group with two other designers. I was the Lead Researcher for this project. Together we created a website for social good, which is to design for social issues to make an impact on the world. The theme we all collectively chose was for environmental issues. We then took this theme to create an imaginary group called Flora Forge Garden. Together we wrote out their background and story to create the website needed to make a social impact.

Project Duration

January 2026 to February 2026

Roles and Responsibilites

  • Tereza Garcia as Lead Researcher
  • Reese Parker as Lead Designer
  • Cristopher Guifarro as Lead Tester

Problem Statement

Flora Forge Garden is planning new garden beds for the plot of land being bought this year. Volunteers are needed to start the year strong but, Flora Forge Garden does not want to receive low sign-ups for this clean-up project. To receive these results, research was conducted to help Flora Forge Garden achieve their initial goal.​

Research

Methods used for this phase was personas and a competitive audit using SemRush. SemRush is a SEO website that can analyze website for SEO content such as traffic and keywords.

Personas

1
Persona- Arlo Thanasis
2
Persona-Ailis Mariah

SemRush- Competitive Audit

For our competitors, we have two different organizations to compare, WWOOF | World Wide Opportunities on Organic Farms and Raleigh Garden Club. FloraForge Garden is a nonprofit, therefore selling merchandise or anything of the sort is not the main objective. SemRush was used to compare websites to see what correlations are found between the two organizations. This will help FloraForge Garden build a foundation for their website and stand above other organizations.  

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SEO results for WWOOF.net
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SEO results for Raleigh Garden Club

Both organizations are clearly not for profit because of the paid keywords section. Traffic, however, does vary between the two. Both do well within organic searching through keywords. This can help FloraForge Garden achieve awareness on their website. Gardening could be the main keyword but also sustainability, environment, or environmental activism.

Design

Along with the final website design our team also had to provide email mockups for social media and nurturing emails for potential users after signups. The lead designer using the research provided produced the final designs for each as well as the information architecture, design system and wireframes. The lead tester and I fully critiqued each design and gave feedback before anything was finalized for the final deliverables.

Brand System

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Brand design for FloraForge Garden.

Social Media Mockups

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Facebook mockup for FloraForge Garden.

Email Mockup

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Email mockup of signup kit for FloraForge Garden.

Information Architecture

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Information architecture for FloraForge Garden.

Wireframes

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Wireframes for FloraForge Garden.

Usability Testing

For our testing, our lead tester took the low and mid fidelity prototypes and tested with two users. They had 3 tasks to complete. Recognize the organization and understand what they do, sign up for the eco action kit, and locating and exploring gardening events.

Each tester was able to identify the brand and what the organization stood for. The action kit process was easy to understand and simple to complete. All the expectations of seeing event types before choosing dates was recognized and was appreciated. These results did help us to add and modify the final design.

High-Fidelity Prototype

FloraForge Garden Home page

Takeaways

This project was the first time I have collaborated with others to complete a design. Throughout my journey in the UX program I had gotten used to doing all of the work on my own. I had a wonderful time working with Reese Parker and Cristopher Guifarro. We had some issues at the start but once we had our design in place, there were no issues in completing the final results.