Improving Information Access for Climate and Health Advocates
CLIENT
Carolina Advocates for Climate, Health and Equity (CACHE)
TIMELINE
December 2024 - April 2025
ROLE
UX Researcher on a 9-Person multidisciplinary team with 3 researchers
WHAT I DID
conduct user interviews, synthesize qualitative findings, identify usability pain points, contribute recommendations for website improvements.
Summary of case study
Carolina Advocates for Climate, Health & Equity (CACHE) is a North Carolina nonprofit that equips healthcare professionals with evidence-based resources on the relationship between climate change and public health. As the organization expanded its library of educational content, stakeholders recognized that users were struggling to navigate the site and locate information relevant to their needs.
As the UX Researcher on a nine-person interdisciplinary team, I planned and conducted stakeholder interviews, usability testing, and qualitative research synthesis to uncover user pain points and opportunities for improvement. By translating research into actionable design recommendations, I helped inform a website redesign focused on improving discoverability, credibility, accessibility, and user engagement. The final recommendations were handed off to the design team and served as the foundation for the redesigned experience
Background on the project
Carolina Advocates for Climate, Health and Equity (CACHE) is a North Carolina nonprofit organization that brings together physicians, nurses, public health professionals, and other healthcare practitioners to address the impacts of climate change on health and health equity. Beyond advocacy, CACHE serves as a central hub for educational resources, clinical guidance, policy initiatives, and opportunities for community engagement.
As the organization expanded, so did the amount of information available through its website. While the platform housed valuable resources for both healthcare professionals and community advocates, the growing volume of content made it increasingly difficult for users to locate relevant information, understand how to get involved, and navigate the organization's various initiatives.
As part of an interdisciplinary practicum team (9 person team of 3 researchers, 4 designers, and 2 project managers) we partnered directly with CACHE to evaluate the existing resource hub and provide research-backed recommendations that would improve usability, information architecture, and member engagement.
The Challenge
CACHE's main problem was discoverability.
The organization had invested significant effort into creating educational materials, advocacy resources, committee information, newsletters, and clinical guidance. However, these resources served a wide range of users with different goals, including physicians, students, nurses, researchers, and community advocates. As the site grew, users often struggled to determine where to begin, which resources were relevant to them, and how different sections of the organization connected to one another.
The research team's primary objective was to understand how real users searched for information, what they expected to find when visiting the website, and where friction occurred during navigation. Rather than jumping directly into redesigning pages, we first sought to understand the underlying usability and information architecture issues through user research.
THE GOAL
Our goal was to provide research-backed recommendations that would help the organization create a more accessible, organized, and actionable web experience.
We began by meeting with CACHE leadership to understand organizational goals and identify key challenges facing the website. From these conversations, we learned that the organization wanted the website to serve as both a resource hub and a community engagement platform. This dual purpose created unique challenges around content organization and discoverability.
Research Approach
USER INTERVIEWS
Our primary method of research was user interviews. To better understand user needs we conducted interviews with individuals who represented CACHE's target audience. Participants were asked to explore the website, complete common tasks, share their expectations and reactions and discuss how they typically search for climate-health information.
Rather than focusing solely on task-completion, we encouraged participants to think aloud as they navigated the site. This allowed us to understand not only what users did, but why they did it.
AI-ASSISTED WORKFLOW
I personally conducted 3 of our user interviews over zoom resulting in hours of interview recordings.
To streamline the research process, I used Otter AI to automatically transcribe stakeholder interviews. Rather than spending hours manually transcribing recordings, I was able to focus on identifying behavioral patterns, usability issues, and participant motivations.
I reviewed interview recordings alongside the transcripts to verify accuracy, add contextual notes, and ensure important nuances were not lost before synthesizing findings into actionable recommendations.
RESEARCH HIGHLIGHT
An excerpt from a user interview I conducted with a user examining the resources page. The CACHE resources page was a primary target for user feedback as it contained a lot of the valuable resources collected by CACHE stakeholders on Climate Health.
However, although it was one of their most important pages, it was also considered the most "overwhelming" or "disorganized" by users due to lack of information hierarchy and categorization.
Key Findings
On the resources page, many participants struggled to determine who specific resources or committees were intended for. Users frequently asked questions such as:
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Is this information for healthcare professionals?
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Is it intended for students?
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Is it meant for community advocates?
Without clear audience labeling users had difficulty determining where to start.
Opportunity:
Create audience-based pathways and resource categorization.
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Participants generally believed the website contained valuable information. However, they often struggled to locate specific resources efficiently. Several users expressed feeling overwhelmed by large resource lists and extensive content collections.
One participant described wanting a "start here" approach that would help guide new visitors through the available information.
Opportunity:
Improve information architecture and introduce clearer content hierarchy.Participants consistently expressed interest in quick summaries before committing to lengthy reports, PDFs, or technical documents. Users wanted:
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Brief explanations
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Resource previews
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Context before downloading materials
This was especially important for busy professionals evaluating whether a resource was relevant to their work.
Opportunity:
Provide summaries, previews, and structured pathways into deeper content.-
Users appreciated the quantity of available resources but often felt overwhelmed by the presentation. Many resources existed in different formats including:
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Reports
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Fact sheets
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Toolkits
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Videos
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External links
Participants suggested that grouping resources by audience, topic, or expertise level would improve discoverability.
Opportunity:
Implement filtering, categorization, and improved resource organization.-
Participants often evaluated credibility through:
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Professional presentation
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Organizational transparency
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Clear explanations of purpose and impact
Users wanted a stronger understanding of:
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Who CACHE serves
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How the organization operates
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What outcomes its advocacy efforts produce
Opportunity:
Increase visibility of organizational impact and member activities.-
Impact
Our research findings helped identify several opportunities to improve:
Website navigation
Resource discoverability
Information architecture
Audience segmentation
Member engagement pathways
The findings were shared with the design team and project stakeholders to guide design improvements to the CACHE resource hub.
By grounding recommendations in user feedback, the organization gained a clearer understanding of how its members seek information and engage with climate-health content.
WHAT I LEARNED
Asking better questions leads to better insights
One of the most valuable lessons from this project was learning how to facilitate interviews that encourage participants to explain their reasoning rather than simply complete tasks.
Many of the strongest insights came from moments when participants described confusion, expectations, or assumptions while navigating the site.
Information Architecture Is User Experience
Before this project, I often associated UX primarily with interface design.
Through this research, I gained a deeper appreciation for how content organization, labeling, and navigation influence the overall user experience.
Even when valuable information exists, users cannot benefit from it if they cannot find it.
Real Users Rarely Navigate as Designers Expect
Several participants interacted with the website differently than we initially anticipated. This reinforced the importance of validating assumptions through research rather than relying solely on internal perspectives.
Reflections on the project
This project strengthened my skills as a UX researcher by giving me hands-on experience conducting interviews, synthesizing qualitative data, and translating user feedback into actionable recommendations.
More importantly, it reinforced a lesson that continues to shape my work:
Good user experiences are not only about designing better interfaces, they are also about helping people find, understand, and act on information with confidence.
After the project my teammates and I presented a poster with details about our project at the 2026 SILS Scholar Showcase at UNC Chapel Hill.
