Rebuilding the Digital Home of a Rural Queer Community

Project Overview

Team: Hridya Nadappattel, Nikhil Shetty, Radhika Balaji, Zoë Zapata

Tools: Figma, Google Suite, Zoom, Optimal Workshop

Timeline: 3 months

Client: Mendocino County Safe Space Project (MCSSP)

Objective: Strengthen MCSSP’s digital presence by increasing visibility, accessibility, and engagement.

MCSSP is a queer/LGBTQIA2S+ safe space project focused on getting resources to the masses. They are dedicated to providing organisations with training on Cultural Humility and on how to make any space queer-supportive.

When we were introduced to the Mendocino County Safe Space Project through our professor Rachel Ginsberg, we were really excited to see how we could mould their site into something they were proud of. What we didn’t anticipate was how hard it would be to gather everything to make a cohesive site that would impact many queer lives. 

Understanding how to help MCSSP

We first started by researching MCSSP’s digital footprint. What we found digging through were their:

Going through this, we realised that their site had almost no content. Their social media presence lacked context, but had so many great resources and pictures about the community. Their scholarship existed on the internet, but could students discover it? The donation page lived on a third-party platform, which was pinned on their Facebook page.

But the gaps in their digital identity raised a much bigger question:

If this organization is providing essential support, where’s the story? To understand this, we met the client and discovered how much was hidden.

Cynthia gave us insight into meaningful stories and efforts, and they weren’t being highlighted by the current site and social media presence:

• A local safe space in a rural county
• A mentorship and scholarship provider
• A community education resource
• A point of connection for isolated queer youth
• A grassroots organization run with pure passion

Hence, we decided that MCSSP’s narrative deserved a louder voice.

Benchmarking What a Holistic Queer Resource Hub Should Be

We also asked to be connected with the queer folk at Mendocino to really get an idea of how queer life really was over there. This really filled in the gaps we were not able to uncover through desk research: 

• The difficulty of finding queer-affirming doctors, therapists, and educators
• The heavy reliance on word-of-mouth
• The cultural isolation of rural queer youth
• The desire for a centralized, trustworthy resource
• The emotional significance of seeing yourself represented online

Going through everything we uncovered, it slowly became evident that, alongside making MCSSP a platform where queer voices are elevated, the site also had to work in people’s hands, not just on their desktops, making a mobile-first approach essential for real access.

Too Many Directions, One Big Realization

Strategic Direction

Design a website that increases the visibility of MCSSP’s impact in Mendocino by surfacing resources and reflecting community presence, thus driving engagement through participation and donation.

With this figured out, we were finally ready to tackle the website

Creating the Information Architecture

With the strategic direction as our north star, we went into mapping out what resources could be required, where backed by what we found during all the research. Gradually, we created a collective map that held MCSSP’s entire story in a way any user could follow.

And with this blueprint came the next challenge: turning structure into screens.

Making a queer-friendly website with the best intentions

Once we started wireframing, things got rocky again. Everyone had their own interpretation of the structure, tone, and level of detail. Some pages were highly informational; others were conceptual or visual.

There was another critical nuance: the word “queer,” though reclaimed, can still be sensitive depending on the audience, age, and geography.

So we paused and created a list of questions for Cynthia:

• Tone
• Visual identity
• Audience expectations
• Language sensitivity
• Resource categorization
• And most importantly, how many resources would they have?

That meeting clarified everything. Cynthia gave us green lights, boundaries, and intentions that solidified our final direction.

We finally created the site that addressed everything from research, client needs, what was available and what we saw out in the world. This was the moment when everything suddenly “clicked” visually. The structure made sense, the tone aligned with the community, and the resource pathways finally felt intuitive.

The new face of MCSSP

Brand Identity & Visual Language

Home

Who We Are

Resources & Support

Events Calendar

Joy in Pride

Get Involved

Did our designs really make sense?

All of these issues were blocking access to real support. To mitigate this, some of our more playful ideas had to be toned down so users would immediately understand where to go. (Trying to be “gay and fun” sometimes clashes with trying to be “clear and useful,” unfortunately.)

This revision became our final IA; solid, accessible, and intuitive.

Final Hi-Fi, Documentation, and Handoff

With the structure solved, we pushed through the final high fidelity designs.

We:

• Refined interactions
• Clarified hierarchy
• Standardized terminology
• Ensured accessibility

And then we presented everything to the MCSSP board.

Their reaction?

They were impressed—genuinely excited.

Cynthia and the board told us that they finally saw their mission clearly represented. They were already eager to build it out and asked us how we could go about implementing what we made.

We recommended four website creation platforms — Framer, WordPress, Webflow and Lovable — focusing on what the easiest and effective way to implement the website will be.

Final Reflection