Ascent Funding

FAQ System for Ascent Funding

Description

The project was a web application for Ascent Funding, LLC, a Financial Technology company that provided loans for college and coding bootcamps. The project involved creating a user-friendly interface for students and staff to search through Frequently Asked Questions (FAQs) that were Search Engine Optimized (SEO).

Client

The client was Ascent Funding, LLC, my current employer at the time which was a Financial Technology company.

Client Industry

The client industry was FinTech, who provided loans to go to college or coding bootcamps.

Project Type

The project type was a web application for students and staff to search for Frequently Asked Questions (FAQs). The FAQs needed to be Search Engine Optimized (SEO) to help students and staff find answers to their questions quickly.

Goals

Client Problems Solved

The client problems solved were the need for a centralized knowledge base that could be easily updated and maintained, as well as the need for a system that could handle a large volume of FAQs without compromising performance.

Key Objectives

The key objectives were to improve user experience, increase the efficiency of finding information, enhance the overall functionality of the FAQ system, and make the FAQs easily searchable and accessible to both students and staff.

Challenges

The challenges faced included ensuring the system could handle a large number of FAQs, maintaining SEO best practices, creating a responsive design that worked well on various devices, and ensuring the system was easy to update and maintain by non-technical staff.

Approach

Stack Used

The stack used for the project included integrating with the WordPress CMS, which was used to manage the FAQs. The project utilized HTML, CSS, SCSS, JavaScript and jQuery for the front-end development, ensuring a responsive design that worked well on both desktop and mobile devices. The back-end was powered by WordPress and PHP, which provided a robust content management system for the FAQs.

Process Highlights

The process highlights included conducting user research to understand the needs of students and staff, creating the list of FAQs that would be shown on the page, designing wireframes and prototypes for the FAQ interface, designing the interface on Figma, implementing SEO strategies to improve searchability, integrating the FAQ system with WordPress for easy content management, and performing thorough testing to ensure responsiveness and usability across device including A/B testing to optimize the user experience.

Collaboration

The collaboration with the client involved regular meetings to gather feedback, discuss requirements, and ensure that the project was aligned with the client's goals. The client provided input on the design and functionality of the FAQ system, which helped shape the final product.

Unusual Decisions

Some unusual decisions made during the project included adding and removing certain FAQs based on user feedback and creating a custom design that stood out from typical FAQ pages.

Outcome

Results

The outcome of the project was a fully functional and user-friendly FAQ system that met the needs of both students and staff. The system was well-received by the client, who appreciated the improved user experience and the ease of managing the FAQs through WordPress.

Client Feedback

The client feedback was positive, with users finding the FAQ system easy to navigate and search. The project successfully achieved its goals of improving user experience, increasing efficiency in finding information, and enhancing the overall functionality of the FAQ system.

Personal Takeaways

Some personal takeaways from the project included the importance of user research in understanding the needs of the target audience, the value of collaboration with the client throughout the project, and the benefits of using a robust CMS like WordPress for managing content. Additionally, I was able to implement SEO best practices effectively, which improved the visibility of the FAQs in search engines.

My Role

My role in the project was as front-end and back-end developer, responsible for implementing the development and functionality of the FAQ system. I worked closely with the client to gather requirements, and worked with the UX designers to develop the user interface and ensure that it was responsive and user-friendly. I also handled the integration with WordPress, ensuring that the FAQs could be easily managed and updated by non-technical staff. For the SEO aspect, I implemented strategies to ensure that the FAQs were optimized for search engines, making it easier for users to find the information they needed.