Rise Together
Redesigning Rise Together’s website through changing the site architecture and UI based on user research.
Tools Used
Figma
Timeline
June 2025-August 2025
Team
1 designer, independent
Background
What is Rise Together?
My Role
Research
Meeting Client Needs
Rise Together is a non-profit, and their mission is to connect low-income, high-school students to college mentors that can provide them with guidance through the college application process.
My goal working as. an intern for this non-profit over the summer was to redesign the website so that it was more visually appealing and fit what Rise Together stood for.
My first step was to understand my client’s needs. Gina, the founder of Rise Together and a guidance counselor with over 35 years of experience, brings a deeply personal stake to this website and company.
When I talked to her about what she wanted from the website, she said she wanted it to be heartwarming, bold, and easier to navigate.
Website Audit
I went through each screen to pinpoint what was visually wrong with the website.
Failure to meet multiple WCAG Guidelines
Contrast for hero image title is terrible.
“Learn More” is non-accessible, does not help with assistive tech
Usability Study
I conducted a usability study with 5 potential students who might have been interested in joining Rise Together to find out how to improve the navigation of the site.
Competitive Analysis
I conducted competitive analysis on three mentor driven non-profit websites: Matriculte, Big Brothers Big Sisters of America, and Spark the Journey to find out what content should be on the page
Bring metrics and impact to forefront
Surface mission on homepage and make it shorter
Simplify navigation, eliminate redundancy
Armed with research on how to improve the visuals, navigation, and content of the website, I started to design.
Explorations in Design
Revised Information Architecture
The previous navigation bar made the site have 18 pages. I restructured the information architecture of the site to reduce the website to 11 pages total, with three tabs,
The New Design System
I built a new design system myself to make the website more consistent and to better align with Rise Together’s brand,
Addressing text overload
Since this website was very text heavy, I focused on trying to visualize the impact.
I also implemented cards into the design system to split up information into more digestible sections,
Previous Website
Final Prototype
New Website
Conclusion
Reflection
This large-scale project strengthened my ability to condense information, communicate effectively with clients, and independently lead a project from concept to delivery. Unlike my previous internship, where feedback was more structured, this experience involved navigating ambiguous client input, requiring me to make and defend my own design decisions.
@2025 Aryaa Deshpande
