My Role as a Designer

My client at Women's Voices Now needed help optimizing their Ajax Search Bar plugin on WordPress. By accessing the backend of their site, I was able to implement changes to improve the usability of their search bar.

Problem

At the beginning of my project, Women's Voices Now had a non-functional search bar. Users landed on a page with a search bar that provided no categories or suggestions to choose from.

• WordPress

• Ajax Search Pro

• Elementor

• GoogleMeet

Tools

Design Process

Once I programmed the search bar to include integrated taxonomy for the different categories of films, I moved on to styling the search bar using the theme & styling functions in the Ajax Search Pro plugin. My goal was to create a visual identity that was aligned with the brand’s values and message. Also, I’ve checked the competition and took a deep dive into my catalog of references for inspiration.

• The icons used across the site are round.

• The colors are vibrant and attention-grabbing.

• Other pages referenced the ability to filter by language, region, category, and subject.

By utilizing the Ajax Search Pro Plugin on WordPress, I organized specific categories to be shown on the search bar settings.

Integrated Taxonomies

Learnings

Throughout this project, I learned how to utilize the backend of WordPress as well as which plugins were beneficial for the success of an optimized search bar. By using Elementor I learned how to layout the front end of the site and tie it in with the custom codes I created on the backend. These tools were extremely useful and I hope to use them again in the future!

"Working with Abigail is a breeze! Her UI and UX experience were showcased on this project. She fixed issues on our film collection and improved its design and features with no previous experience of our CMS & plugins! We are glad we went with Abigail for this project."

— Lamine A.

Digital Growth Strategist at Women's Voices Now