PHFE WIC Website Overhaul: Streamlining Access & Elevating Participant Engagement

Situation
​and Challenge

Solution and Execution

Current Status
PHFE WIC is the largest WIC agency in the United States, serving nearly 200,000 low-income individuals monthly across Southern California. WIC provides healthy food, nutrition education, breastfeeding support, and connections to health and educational resources. However, the legacy web experience relied on dense, link-heavy navigation that prioritized administrative stakeholder information over participant needs. This created friction for low-income families seeking immediate care and contributed to drop-offs in participant retention.
  • Goal: To transform a static, administrative directory into a modern, accessible, participant-first digital experience.
As the agency's sole designer, I collaborated with colleagues across multiple departments to completely overhaul the website’s UI/UX architecture. This involved:
  • Building a Figma wireframe to reconstruct the website's desktop and mobile interfaces
  • Replacing multi-layer menus with an intuitive mega menu and streamlined page taxonomy, while consolidating redundant administrative pages
  • Designing dynamic homepage hero components, including a featured announcement carousel, to immediately highlight and lead users to key resources, such as program updates and weekly virtual classes​
  • Integrating web accessibility guidelines across the visual design system, including enhanced color contrast
  • Applying clear typographic hierarchy and balanced whitespace to reduce cognitive load for users
This structural redesign successfully established the design direction for the agency's digital refresh. The responsive wireframes are currently undergoing qualitative participant testing to measure task success rates, validate navigation flows, and ensure accessibility standards before final implementation.
Current PHFE WIC home page and hero image
This banner immediately introduces potential applicants to the program, but it does not instantly lead current WIC participants to useful educaitonal resources. 
Proposed PHFE WIC home page and hero image
​This banner image included in an interactive carousel provides website visitors, whether they are new WIC applicants, current positions, or community partners with immediate information about program resources
​and current events.
 Current PHFE WIC navigation menu (PC)
This menu includes too many options and requires users to navigate between multiple dropdown menus, potentially causing frustration and a higher bounce rate.
Proposed PHFE WIC navigation menu (PC)
The prototype features an organized and condensed mega menu that appears when hovering over any portion of the navigation menu, making it easy for users to visualize all navigation options ​with minimal effort.
Current PHFE WIC home navigation menu (Mobile)
In addition to including an overwhelming variety of options, the mobile navigation menu is difficult to use, with dropdown options appearing
​​too small to view and easily click.
Proposed PHFE WIC home navigation menu (Mobile)
The prototype features a slide out menu that covers the entire mobile inferface, allowing users to focus solely on the interactive content and addressing accessibility issues with larger, bolded text.
Current PHFE WIC home page structure
The structure of the current home page features the blog posts first, followed by important program information, which is not intuitive for users visiting the website. 
Proposed PHFE WIC home page structure
The new structure of the page prioritizes and neatly organizes information and resources for both prospective applicants and current WIC participants, while featuring less crucial information, such as participant testimonials and blog posts at the end of the page.

 Desktop Wireframe
​(Microsoft Surface Pro 8)

Mobile Wireframe
(iPhone 14)