Stars & Stripes Ready

UX PROJECT: Mobile site
Created with real-life military transitions in mind, Stars & Stripes Ready helps bring structure and clarity to deployment and relocation by offering users a task list feature and other relevant resources.

The site aims to support families through each stage of the military-life event process.
View Prototype

Project Details

Problem Statement

There is a need for a mobile app designed to help military spouses and partners prepare for significant life events such as deployments and relocations. A user would use this app to organize tasks, track progress, and access curated resources that support both practical planning and emotional well-being.

Goals

This mobile website is created to help military spouses and partners with preparing for a military-related life events, such as deployments and relocations.

This site allows the capability of creating a personalized task list and offers other military-oriented resources.

My Role in the Project

• As a student completing this project, I believe I fulfilled the role of a UX Generalist where I completed both research and design tasks.
• I am also a military spouse, which gives me firsthand insight into this audience.

Research Conducted

I completed a competitive audit where I reviewed other task organization mobile apps. I discovered that there are not a lot of these apps available for personal use. Many available are geared toward professionals in project management. In addition, the apps offered a lot of capabilities, but didn’t seem to have very intuitive interfaces or instructions on how to use them.
They covered many general areas, such as wish-lists to to-do lists. This made me realize that a more simplistic task organization app with helpful information around the military family lifestyle could be really useful to this audience.

Target Audience

Primary:

  • Adults between the ages of 18 – 50 years old.
  • These adults may have children and some may not.
  • This audience may belocated in and out of the US. However, the users outside the US, would most likely be living on a US military base.

Secondary:

  • Later in the development process of this site, a secondary user flow was added intended for active duty military members, who would also be between the ages of 18 years - 50 years old.
  • This audience may belocated in and out of the US. However, the users outside the US, would most likely be living on a US military base.

User Personas:

To determine more about what each user's behavior and needs could be on this fan site, user personas were created. View them here:
Persona 1Persona 2

Project Plan

Design a mobile website to give military spouses and partners a way to write down and track their tasks needed to prepare for an upcoming military-oriented life event. Also, provide a tool that these military families can use to access relevant and helpful resources.

The Design Process

1. Sitemap

An overview of all the pages created for Mindful Support Space's website.

2. User Flow

3. Wireframes

Here are a few wireframes that each represent one mobile site page. They outline placement of logo, navigational hamburger menu, welcome messages, photos, and textual information.
Home Page
Task List
Instructions Page
+ New Task Page
Current Task List Page

3. Brand Identity Design

The fan site visually starts to get put together here! The raccoon logo and color scheme was determined based on what could be envisioned for team colors.

The rough, block typeface matches the sports' theme, too.

4. The First Prototype

The images below are a glimpse of a few of the website prototype's pages. Accessibility standards, such as readability, ample contrast, and ease of navigation, were considered.
Home Page
Task List
Instructions Page
+ New Task Page
Current Task List Page

Testing & Revised Prototypes

Tests Conducted

During spring of 2025, I conducted a variety of user-related testing on the Stars & Stripes mobile site. Based on user feedback, respective changes were made to the prototype.

Concept Survey Test

I created a subject-matter survey to determine frequency of using task lists and task list preferences.

Results

Users commonly use task or "to-do" lists and do so on a daily basis. Having an overall list reminder can help users with the issue of forgetting to check on their list and update them. They also tend to feel overwhelmed with the way their homemade task lists look.

Preference Survey Test

This survey shared insights that users preferred a horizontal layout of call-to-action buttons. In addition, they feel more confident using buttons with only text written in them versus a text and icon combination button.

Results

This survey analyzed the participants' visual preferences with different typography styles, colors, and button types used in the Stars & Stripes Ready site.

Usability Test
This research study was moderated and took place over a Microsoft Teams video call for about 30 minutes. One participant tested the app’s prototype according to the moderator’s instructions while two individuals observe the study.

The goal of the study was to discover if users benefit from the task list in the app’s prototype and if the task list helps users stay organized.
Results
This usability study was successful in that the participants were able to complete the user flow of creating a task list and adding tasks to it. However, the participants remarked on the text in some places being harder to see and they weren't sure how to use the Task Suggestions' page.

Updates Made

  1. Removed icons from call-to-action buttons other than the plus sign.
  2. Used a bolder font in the task list item and throughout the site.
  3. Created a list notification overlay feature to connect to user's calendar on their mobile device.
  4. Added more white space throughout page layouts. Reduced width and size of call-to-action buttons marginally to make space.
  5. Created an option to save a current task list version.
  6. Included more context information on the Task Suggestion page.

Future Considerations

  • Re-design the Stars & Stripes Ready logo to have more of a modern and family-friendly feel.
  • Add additional screens to make the task list feature even more realistic and easy to use.

Updates After User Testing

Lastest Prototype Iteration

Since April 2025, even more changes have been made to this project since the usability studies took place. Check out the newest version!

Explore the Project Even Further

Curious about how all the details within the UX research, design, and iteration process shaped the Stars & Stripes Ready site? View the presentations below.
Project Overview PDFSite Usability Research PDF