Research
Design
Prototype
Timeline
Role
Project Manager
UX/UI designer
Skills
Team
IAS (Water and Sanitation Institute) is a nonprofit organization dedicated to mobilizing efforts toward universal sanitation and equitable access to water in Brazil.
Despite the strength of their mission and the broad scope of action, their website told a different story: users were bouncing immediately, spending minimal time exploring, and treating the site as merely a gateway to their external data platform. Valuable content was there, but discoverability was broken.
My goal was to re-architect IAS's entire digital experience, transforming it from a static institutional brochure into a dynamic knowledge hub that showcases their full scope of work. The challenge wasn't just a simple visual redesign, but creating a strategic platform that drives engagement, builds authority, and amplifies their mission impact in the sector.
Key Redesign Impact
AT A GLANCE
Transforming digital engagement for a non-profit through strategic UX redesign
01 \ RESEARCH
Dissecting our problem scope
Lacking direct access to end users, I turned to web analytics to understand how users were engaging with the IAS's website. This deep dive not only helped me to identify pain points and optimization opportunities, but also set clear benchmarks for success.
AUDIENCES
Who I was designing for
I collaborated with IAS stakeholders to map their key audiences. This step was essential to understanding their content needs and analyzing their interaction behaviors.
Water and sanitation technical professionals
Public policy researchers and government officials
Civil society organizations and advocacy groups
Media professionals covering environmental issues
Opinion leaders and policy influencers
Cultural figures advocating for social causes
General public interested in environmental and social justice
USER GOALS
Clarifying user goals
IAS's website is an information-driven, rather than a product platform.
Users come to explore water and sanitation content and resources, including news articles, annual reports, technical studies, policy updates, events. Their main goals center on content consumption, researching, and learning — not complete complex transactions, but deepening their understanding of the sector.
These goals informed a different UX approach focused on information design, content discoverability, transforming complex information into clear, accessible, engaging and human-centered experience.
ANALYTICS REVIEW
What the data revealed
about user behavior
Measurement context
The analysis covers a 60-day period before the redesign.
Data was collected using Google Analytics and Google Tag Manager.
INSIGHTS
A critical disconnection between engagement
and discovery
The data told us a clear story: the content worked, but the architecture didn’t.
Users engaged with individual resources, yet the site’s structure left them stranded on content islands instead of guiding them on a meaningful journey.
Navigation dead-ends
The site wasn’t encouraging deeper explorations and clear conversion paths, suggesting structural and navigational challenges, failing to promote content discoverability.
Hidden knowledge
Valuable resources existed, but users struggled to find or access them, which was hurting conversions but also IAS's goal to establish their website as a knowledge hub in the water and sanitation sector.
Content islands
People valued IAS's content, but the the whole experience was architected around content islands, not offering engagement opportunities and clear pathways for visitors to discover more.
Relationship-building barriers
The low newsletter subscription rate meant IAS was failing to capture interest and build an ongoing relationship with professionals and other stakeholders in the sector.
UX AUDIT
Evaluating the UX before the redesign
To complement the Analytics Review, I also ran a UX audit to evaluate information architecture, navigation patterns, usability heuristics, visual design, and content strategy across key site pages.
My analysis revealed major structural and usability issues such as lack of visual hierarchy, poor grouping, text-heavy designs and single-level navigation which contributed to the low engagement and discoverability.
All of these barriers made it harder for new visitors to understand the institute's mission, navigate the site smoothly, and feel motivated to explore deeper and connect with the organization's mission.
PRIORITIZATION
Key UX Improvement Opportunities
Based on research insights and a collaborative value-vs-effort analysis conducted with IAS stakeholders, we strategically focused our ideation process on these critical areas of improvement:
Create a user-centered
information architecture
Restructure content organization around user goals. Implement clear content hierarchy, progressive disclosure towards relevant information and conversion actions.
Build new paths and engagement opportunities
Add prominent related content recommendations and strategic call-to-action tailored to different user goals. Transform passive information consumption into active engagement.
Integrate storytelling
Add support imagery, icons, infographics, timeline that communicate credibility and mission impact. Create a more engaging and memorable user experience.
New visual language
Implement a more vibrant and meaningful design system (aligned with their new branding) to better reflect the organization's mission and drive meaningful engagement.
02 \ STRATEGY
Connecting UX improvements with
organizational impact
The strategy stage set a solid foundation for the redesign by aligning organizational goals with user needs.
Through stakeholder workshops and interviews, we clarified the Institute's strategic goals and connected them with insights from our analytics review.
This collaborative approach ensured the new website would not only reflect IAS's new visual identity but also deliver meaningful value to both external audiences and internal teams.
GOAL SETTING
We defined three core UX goals and key results to guide the redesign process, ensuring that design decisions support both user needs and organizational impact:
Strategic goals and success metrics
UX Focus
Impact on Users
Organizational Outcome
Key Results
Contextual navigation and new content structure to help users discover new content and engage deeper
Users discover more publications, news, resources, reinforcing the organization as a knowledge hub
Pages per session
Session duration
Bounce rate
% of users reaching key content
Clear and inspiring messaging help users understand the organization's purpose, values and initiatives
Users discover more publications, news, resources, reinforcing the organization as a knowledge hub
Brand perception
Returning visitor rate
Time on About page
Referral and organic traffic
Streamlined interactions with downloads, newsletter signups, encourage return
Higher engagement drives wider knowledge dissemination and deeper connections
Downloads
Newsletter signups
Repeat sessions
03 \ IDEATION
Creating a knowledge
hub to engage and increase awareness
With the strategic goals and UX focus in mind, we run a value vs effort matrix workshop and explored different approaches and design solutions to transform the user engagement and content discoverability positioning IAS as a leading reference in the sector.
Our process combined UI pattern analysis, iterative sketching, testing, and stakeholder validation to develop design solutions that are both strategic and user-centered.
INFORMATION ARCHITECTURE
Restructuring for Discovery: From Hidden Content to Strategic Navigation
The core challenge was twofold:
Restructure the information architecture and content organization to improve hierarchy and content discoverability
Balance organizational goals with user needs in a non-profit context where objectives can be complex and sometimes misaligned with user behavior
My Strategic Approach
Content modeling
Data-driven prioritization
Structured taxonomy around most-accessed content
Mental model alignment
Card sorting to match user expectations
Content consolidation
Site Maps Comparision
IA Diagram + Content Structure
CONCEPTS
Exploring ideas
through sketching
Moving from rough sketches to detailed wireframes served multiple strategic purposes:
Validate information hierarchy decisions
Explore different UI patterns and identify potential usability issues early
Establish a strong foundation for stakeholder alignment
DESIGN EXPLORATIONS
Layout explorations
for core sections
I designed mid-fidelity wireframes of core pages to explore different approaches to layout and navigation elements. During this process I collaborated with another designer, the front-end developer and the client for critique, direction and technical review on possible constraints.
04 / SOLUTION
Transforming user experience through strategic design
My solution centered on two strategic UX improvements: Navigation & Discovery and Content Engagement.
I restructured the information architecture and introduced an intuitive mega menu system to help users find relevant content quickly. To increase engagement, I designed interactive components including tabbed sections, filtering and tagging systems, and related article recommendations that transform passive reading into active exploration, creating conversion opportunities throughout the user journey. Combined with a complete visual redesign implementing IAS's new brand identity (modern typography, custom iconography, and vibrant colors).
The new website not only looks more professional and accessible but authentically reflects their mission.
NAVIGATION
Building a scalable
mega menu to improve discoverability
Content discoverability
The layout offers a clear overview of different content categories, encouraging users to explore beyond their initial intent.
Task efficiency
The structure reduces the number of clicks required to access deeper pages, improving the time to task completion.
Hierarchy and consistency
The design balances text and imagery to guide the user's eye, while consistent navigation reduces cognitive load and builds familiarity
Scalability
Restructured navigation and content organization to encourage deeper interaction with publications, data, news, and multimedia resources.
Mega Menu Final Design
I designed a mega menu to organize the content, improve discoverability and boost user engagement by providing a comprehensive and intuitive way to explore the website's full range of content and resources. This solution makes it easier for users to find what they're looking for and explore deeper.
The mobile version delivers a cohesive and responsive experience, maintaining design consistency with the desktop version. It prioritizes content discovery and ease of use, ensuring an intuitive and efficient navigation and progressive disclosure.
Mega Menu Interaction
The mega menu provides a seamless content discovery and efficient navigation to key section. It appears instantly on hover with a smooth animation, allowing users to transition effortlessly between sections without having to close it and reopen it.
Users can quickly sneak peek high-priority content and popular resources directly within the menu.
DISCOVERABILITY
Rethinking the content
experience to drive deeper engagement
Audience alignment
News section was designed to provide users with seamless access to specific information, while also helping them discover relevant related content within their areas of interest.
Problem-solution fit
The core challenge was contextual content discovery prioritizing topic interests with specific use cases (technical professionals)
Behavior data potential
Tabs, tags, cards and filters provide rich data on user interests and content performance to optimize future content and new features.
Strategic value vs. cost
Balanced immediate impact addressing the 28% bounce rate with long-term scalability for growing content production and product development.
News Section Final Design
News Section Before vs After
NEW CONVERSION PATHS
Creating new pathways for conversion and engagement
Frictionless conversion pathways
Create multiple new pathways for conversion by strategically placing newsletter signup components on the homepage, in the footer, and prominently on the article pages
Improving task efficiency
By highlighting high-priority content and creating intuitive navigation, I've reduced the number of clicks need to access key content and resources, saving users time
Stronger mission alignment
Increasing conversion rates for relevant content and newsletter signups connects users with the organization's mission, creating a more purposeful user experience
Better discovery drives conversion
When users can easily discover relevant content, they stay longer, explore deeper, and are more likely to engage with IAS's initiatives by subscribing to their newsletter or downloading their technical studies
The new mega menu is a powerful content discovery tool that serves dual purposes: efficient site navigation and prominent showcase of high-priority publications that drive institutional engagement.
To improve subscriber acquisition and engagement, we created a multi-touchpoint approach for newsletter signups, strategically placed across key user journey moments, ensuring visitors can easily connect with IAS.
Homepage
Post page and footer
Mobile menu
Core sections final designs
Home page Before vs After
05 / IMPACT
Measurement period
This analysis compares 60-day periods before and after the website redesign launch, with a 5-day buffer for implementation stabilization.
Overall Redesign Impact
+309%
Average
Session Duration
+108%
Views per Session
-55%
Bounce Rate
SUCCES METRICS
Explore the redesign impact across the website. Navigate using the tabs below.
06 / WHAT'S NEXT
Laying the groundwork for growth
The redesign successfully created the foundation for better user engagement and growth, but it’s only the beginning. The next steps include continuous monitoring of analytics, A/B testing key interactions, and gathering direct user feedback to refine navigation and content experiences.
Continuous Research
Surveys and feedback from sector professionals
Generative user interviews to inform new feature development
User research on their primary data visualization product (highest traffic driver) for a upcoming redesign project
Optimization
A/B testing for content discovery and user engagement
Optimize newsletter signup placement and resource download CTAs
Iterative conversion improvement based on continuous behavior data monitoring
Authority-building
Create a traffic recovery strategy following recent Google's core algorithm updates and AI search integration
Actively working with the client to create a content strategy for AI-first search
Focus on featured snippets and semantic SEO to solidify authority
07 / LEARNINGS
