To grasp the community’s needs accurately, the team visited Our Lady of the Road on Sunday morning, equipped with pre-prepared questions. These questions covered topics such as device usage, website access situations, and top tasks. The team identified current website weaknesses, but it was crucial to understand stakeholders’ perspectives. In addition to questions, interviewees navigated the website, sharing their experiences and preferences. Our Lady of the Road caters to a diverse community facing various challenges. Recognizing this, the team prioritized introducing themselves, seeking consent for interviews and photos, and tailoring their approach to the community’s context. Building trust was essential, as the community, familiar with University of Notre Dame volunteers, required clear motivations for genuine and helpful data collection.

Following the Double-Diamond design model, each team member created low-fidelity prototypes for Our Lady of the Road’s website. We then collaboratively identified necessary features through discussions and insights from interviews. To refine the prototype, we converged on a shared vision, with some focusing on a web-based phone prototype, emphasizing volunteer sign-up and homepage structure, and another member on a desktop UI design. Interviews highlighted the majority accessing the site through mobile phones, leading us to prioritize a mobile web-based application. We selected crucial features based on the existing website, individual prototypes, and interview insights, addressing the target users’ primary needs when accessing the site.

The survey results indicate overall satisfaction, with 100% of participants finding the design easy to use. Responses to difficulty or weakness questions were exclusively in the ‘Strongly Disagree’ and ‘Somewhat Disagree’ range, while questions on ease of use and positive design received ‘Strongly Agree’ and ‘Somewhat Agree’ responses. Participants expressed an instinctive familiarity with the components, enhancing efficiency without the need for prior learning. Notably, a participant highlighted the convenience of images, especially for those with English as a second language. This insight emphasizes the potential benefits of a multilingual web application to accommodate the diverse South Bend community, including Spanish speakers and those unfamiliar with certain products or conventions.