State Licensing Agency Website Redesign
Making Licensure Requirements Easier to Navigate
End-to-end UX/UI · Information Architecture · Accessibility · Design System · Content Strategy · Project Management
Timeline
14 weeks
Sep - Dec 2025
Tools
Figma
Jira
WordPress
Illustrator
Team
1 Account manager
1 Design advisor
1 Frontend developer
1 Backend developer
Overview
The North Carolina Board of Dietetics/Nutrition (NCBDN) is a state regulatory agency responsible for licensing dietitians and nutritionists practicing in NC. A quasi-governmental, not-for-profit occupational licensure board, NCBDN's website is its primary channel of communication with its regulated public.
NCBDN came to my agency (MRN Web Designs) for a full website redesign. As the primary designer and project manager on the engagement, I led the project end-to-end. This included discovery research and stakeholder interviews through information architecture, visual design, WCAG compliance, and developer handoff. The existing site had approximately 85 pages and 134 PDFs, was not mobile-responsive, did not meet WCAG 2.1 AA standards, and was generating 5-10 avoidable support requests per day from users who couldn't navigate it.
My Role
End-to-end UX and UI design, user research, information architecture, content strategy, logo and brand design, WCAG 2.1 AA accessibility, Figma component library, stakeholder communication, project management, and QA.
Before
After
The Problem
— The RFP
Six distinct audiences, one mixed-up experience
Discovery revealed the site served NC registered/licensed dietitians and nutritionists, prospective applicants, students and career changers, out-of-state practitioners, the general public, and insurance companies and employers.
Internal taxonomy imposed on public users
Licensure types were organized as "Category A, B, C…" This language was meaningful to board administrators but jargony to anyone trying to figure out whether they needed a license and which one.
Resources disconnected from context
The site held 134 PDFs, many buried and many duplicated. Users needing a specific form had to know to how to find, if they knew they needed it in the first place. The board's support inbox confirmed this step was failing regularly.
Accessibility gaps throughout
Insufficient color contrast, missing alt text, non-semantic HTML structure, and limited text hierarchy meant the site was inaccessible to users relying on screen readers or keyboard navigation.
No mobile or responsive experience
The existing site was not responsive, which was both a usability failure and a WCAG non-compliance issue for users accessing government services on mobile devices.
Conflicting and duplicate content across webpages and PDFs
Sometimes key information existed in multiple places, with varying content. Users had no way of knowing whether they were viewing the right content, or using incomplete information.
Research & Discovery
— Marnie, Executive Director of the North Carolina Board of Dietetics/Nutrition
Before any design decisions, I needed to understand where users were failing, what their ideal visit to this site would accomplish, and how this varied across unique audiences.
Stakeholder Interviews
In initial discovery sessions with board staff, we found that the most common support contacts they received were from applicants asking which licensure type applied to them, where to find specific forms, and what to do next. They were also the board's most frequent touchpoints with the public, and foundational reasons that people visited their website.
Stakeholder conversations also surfaced important constraints: the site needed to clearly integrate with a third-party vendor for their licensure gateway, and provide instruction for tasks handled there.
Analytics Review
I reviewed GA data from the existing site to identify where users were failing behaviorally and to establish baseline metrics to design against.
Key findings:
High bounce rates on licensure-type pages
(Too) short average session length in the Applicants section
More traffic to application-type pages than the Forms page
These data points became the KPIs I designed against, and the goal became to reduce bounce on licensure type pages, increase session depth in the Applicants section, and reduce traffic to the standalone Forms page by adding related resources to pages.
Heuristic Evaluation
I conducted a systematic audit of the existing site and documented points of friction:
Recognition over recall: Users had to know and recognize the technical names for categories of licensure
Consistency and standards: Layout and types of content varied across pages even if they served similar purposes
Error prevention: Nothing in the navigation, linking or content flow guided users toward a clear starting place
Help and documentation: PDF forms, licensure requirements and FAQs existed but they were pieced out
These data points became the KPIs I designed against, and the goal became to reduce bounce on licensure type pages, increase session depth in the Applicants section, and reduce traffic to the standalone Forms page by adding related resources to pages.
Competitive Research
The NDBDN does not have "competition," per se. They are the one place for North Carolina licensure for dietetics/nutrition. However, I reviewed other state licensing board sites the client recommended as reference points for various reasons including the NC Board of Nursing and the NC Board of Licensed Clinical Mental Health, as well as additional boards I identified independently. This established some baselines for how other government websites organize information and guide users through tasks.
Part of an email to NCDBN, from a practicing dietitian/nutritionist in North Carolina.
Solution
Function first
A lot of time was spent at whiteboards, brainstorming in the early stages to map out the task flow and use cases for the Starline app. By getting the function and heavy thinking laid out first, it was easy to catch problems early on and reroute before designing the interface.
Mid-Fidelity Wireflows
Setting up an integrated account
We used these early wireframes to visually represent the features of an onboarding flow that make Starline different. In this case, the connections between types of transit, and journey-wide preferences.
These screens were used to help visualize the placement of elements in combination with function, and work Starline’s unique features and system into a familiar booking app.
Design 1/4
Multi-Modal Transit Support
The Starline App is connected to all transit accounts available in the country, in one place. Users can enter a starting address and where they want to go and let Starline do the rest. Starline tickets are valid throughout every leg of a journey, including transfers to other transit systems, so whether users hop on a bus or transfer to an Amtrak, Starline gets them where they need to be.
Reflections
Service design shapes the digital product
Starline taught me that interfaces need to map to the big-picture experience, and support the greater service design. By mapping the entire travel experience first, we implemented key steps of the journey to the mobile app where is was the most supportive and effective tool.
Designing to be preferred
Starline taught me that even if a product improves user’s lives, real people have to want to use it in the first place. Our preliminary research showed that many people choose cars, even if they might prefer public transit, because driving is so familiar and easy to manage. Addressing behavior challenged me to think beyond individual touchpoints to design a complete ecosystem.
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