Year
July 2023 - Sept 2023
Tools
Deliverables
Website Redesign, Design System, Responsive Design
Role
UX & UI Designer (End-to-End)
Network for Conserving Central India
The organization’s existing website lacked visual cohesion, modern usability standards, and a clear content hierarchy. Key information about conservation initiatives was buried, and the interface did not reflect the organization’s credibility or mission-driven work.
Link to the website : https://www.conservingcentralindia.org/
The Problem
The existing website functioned primarily as an information archive rather than a guided digital experience. While rich in content, it lacked a cohesive visual system and strategic content hierarchy.
Key challenges included:
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Navigation structured around internal programs rather than user intent
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Content-dense layouts with limited scannability
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Inconsistent typography, spacing, and button styles
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Weakly emphasized calls-to-action
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Limited mobile responsiveness considerations
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No scalable design system to support future growth
As a result, the organization’s impactful work was not being communicated with the clarity and credibility
it deserved.
Additionally, the site was hosted on Weebly, which limited layout flexibility, component consistency, and long-term scalability. A full migration was required to enable a more structured and future-ready system.
The site contained over a decade of symposium records and data resources, creating structural complexity that required thoughtful content restructuring during migration.
The Goal
The redesign aimed to evolve the website from an archive-style repository into a clear, mission-driven digital experience that communicates impact and drives engagement.
The migration from Weebly to Wix was used as an opportunity to not only refresh the interface, but to fundamentally rethink structure, scalability, and usability.
Strategic objectives included:
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Replatform with intention: Migrate and restructure legacy content while minimizing information loss.
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Rebuild the IA: Align navigation with user mental models instead of internal program categories.
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Design for scalability: Create modular components and reusable templates to support future growth.
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Clarify hierarchy: Improve readability through consistent typography, spacing, and layout structure.
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Strengthen engagement: Elevate calls-to-action for collaboration, data exploration, and participation.
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Unify the brand: Establish a cohesive visual system aligned with the organization’s mission.
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Ensure responsiveness: Maintain clarity and structure across devices
Target Users
Researchers and conservation scientists
Policy collaborators
and partner institutions
Community Stakeholder
Improving Navigation & Information Architecture
Before
Navigation was organized around internal program categories and layered under a generic “More” menu. Key sections were buried within dropdowns and labeling reflected organizational terminology rather than user intent. This structure increased cognitive load and made
first-time exploration unintuitive.
After
Navigation was reorganized into clear, top-level categories with simplified labeling and intentional grouping. Also, each primary navigation tab was redesigned as a dedicated landing page, supported by dropdown sub-sections for deeper exploration and progressive disclosure to reduce cognitive overload.
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Elevated high-priority sections (Programmes, Symposium, Resources)
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Consolidated related content under cohesive headings
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Introduced structured landing pages for contextual overviews
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Maintained search visibility for direct access
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Standardized templates for recurring content types
Color Palette
The visual system draws from earthy, nature-inspired tones to reflect the organization’s focus on conservation and landscape ecology.
Browns and terracotta add warmth and credibility, while sage and deep olive reinforce environmental context. A neutral beige provides balance and improves content readability. It ensures consistency, supports contrast accessibility, and anchors the visual identity in Central India’s landscapes.
Typography
The typography system pairs Fjalla One for headings with Lato Regular for body text to balance authority with readability.
Fjalla One’s condensed, bold structure creates strong visual hierarchy and lends a sense of confidence and impact to section titles, aligning with the organization’s
mission-driven work.
Lato provides a clean, highly legible body typeface optimized for longer reading, ensuring clarity across dense research content and archival material.
Visual Storytelling & Brand Expression
The visual language draws from Central India's landscapes, wildlife and conservation ecosystems to create a stronger emotional connection to NCCI's mission. Custom illustrated footer elements transformed a traditionally functional area into an extension of the organization's storytelling and brand identity.
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Homepage Redesign
Before
The original homepage functioned primarily as a content repository. Important updates, research initiatives and opportunities for engagement were buried within dense layouts, making it difficult for visitors to understand NCCI's mission or discover relevant content.
Purely from an aesthetic POV, the homepage
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lacked visual hierarchy
-
relied heavily on text-based content blocks
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used inconsistent typography, sizing
and spacing -
featured inconsistent alignment and layout patterns
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failed to establish a strong brand identity and sense of place
Key challenges included:
-
Mission and purpose were not
immediately visible -
News, resources, and updates competed
for attention -
Limited visual storytelling
-
Weak navigation into core programs
and initiatives -
No clear pathways for exploration
or engagement
The redesign focused on creating a clearer first impression, establishing stronger content hierarchy and providing intuitive pathways into the organization's programs, research, and conservation work.
After
Design Decisions
1. Mission First
The homepage now immediately communicates NCCI's purpose and conservation mission before introducing
supporting content.
2. Content
Discoverability
Featured updates and initiatives are surfaced as scannable cards rather than buried within
text-heavy sections.
3. Visual Storytelling
Large landscape imagery and wildlife photography create an emotional connection to the
organization's work.
4. Trust & Credibility
Collaborators, partner organizations and organizational branding are given greater visibility throughout
the experience.
5. Engagement
Opportunities
A clear newsletter signup
and social channels create simple ways for users for users to
stay connected.
Impact: The redesigned homepage became a central gateway to NCCI's programs, publications, research initiatives, and events, providing visitors with a clearer understanding of the organization's work and how to engage with it.
Scalable Content System for Future Growth
NCCI regularly publishes new events, reports, grants, member updates, and conservation initiatives. Rather than designing individual pages, I developed a modular template system that enabled future content additions without compromising consistency or usability.
Before
After
Before
After
Before
After
Outcomes
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Migrated website from Weebly to Wix
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Established scalable information architecture
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Created reusable page templates
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Improved discoverability of programs and resources
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Strengthened organizational credibility through visual design
What I learned
This project taught me how to balance conservation storytelling with information architecture, designing for both inspiration and action while creating a system that could evolve alongside the organization.