Empowering refugee voices: redesigning a community website and marketing strategy for the Karen Organization of San Diego
Redesigned the Karen Organization of San Diego’s website and marketing strategy to create a welcoming online space, strengthen community engagement, and amplify Burmese refugee voices.
Timeline:
Role:
UX Designer
Team:
1 UX Researcher
2 Developers
1 Marketing Strategist
Skills:
Product
Design
BACKGROUND
What is the Karen Organization of San Diego?
The Karen Organization of San Diego (KOSD) is a community-based nonprofit that supports refugees from Burma (Myanmar) in rebuilding their lives in San Diego. It offers programs in education, employment, and culture to help families adapt while preserving their heritage. KOSD empowers refugees to become self-sufficient, active members of the community.
Photo from KOSD website
Understanding the problem
We began by meeting with our clients at KOSD to better understand their organization, mission, and challenges with their existing website. While KOSD had a dedicated member community, their online presence was limited, leading to a disconnect between the organization and its digital audience.
Highlights
Inconsistent content management and limited access affecting the overall usability. |
Difficulty communicating available services and support programs to the community. |
The goal
Target Audience
Since the Karen Organization of San Diego aimed to appeal to both their community and those who support their mission, we developed user personas representing Burmese refugees and potential supporters to better understand their needs, motivations, and interactions with the website.
User experience
Using our user personas as guides, we explored how different stakeholders might interact with the current website. This hands-on approach helped us pinpoint usability challenges, uncover gaps in accessibility, and better understand the overall user experience.
And so we ask..
Competitive Analysis
Through our competitive analysis, we examined common features across similar organizations’ websites and identified design and content elements that could inspire improvements to KOSD’s online presence.
Site map
Created a site map to outline a clear and intuitive structure to improve navigation, accessibility, and user engagement across the organization’s website.
WIREFRAMES
Sketching it out
Brainstorming different designs and layouts through sketches and refining them into low-fi designs
DESIGN SYSTEM
Visuals & Branding
We designed KOSD’s first cohesive visual system, drawing inspiration from their existing website while ensuring accessibility through WCAG 2.1 compliant colors. The palette retains four key hues representing the Myanmar flags, honoring the cultural identity and unity of the KOSD community.
FINAL PITCH
Project walkthrough
REFLECTION
What did I learn?
Stepping out of my comfort zone
I realized I could have explored more creative directions during the prototyping stage. The design constraints of our project felt intimidating at times, and conducting a more in-depth competitive analysis might have helped me push beyond those limitations.
Expressing my own perspective
I often prioritized what developers could manage and hesitated to voice my own design ideas out of concern they might conflict. I’ve learned that open communication and regular discussions foster better collaboration and stronger results.
Collaboration is key!
Even with clearly defined roles, our team maintained a collaborative spirit—supporting one another, balancing workloads, and adapting to each other’s schedules. This experience reminded me that teamwork and flexibility are essential to any successful project.
This project was a valuable opportunity to contribute to KOSD’s website redesign. I’m grateful to my team for their dedication and support, and to KOSD’s staff and members for their collaboration and trust throughout the process.
