Good News Sunrises — Capstone Case Study
Growing your faith while growing your community
Project Date
I started working on this project in Fall 2023 but completed it in Spring 2024.
Project Overview
My goal for this project was to create a digital presence for Good News Sunrises (GNS), a faith-based online startup whose mission is to create a community of people who want to deepen their faith as well as create lifelong friendships. I wanted to create a website where people could increase their knowledge and engage with a Christian community.
Throughout this journey, I utilized Canva, Figma, Adobe Illustrator, and WordPress.
The Problem
With loneliness rates increasing every year people don’t know where to turn to for hope, stability, or companionship. This is what happened to GNS founder, Chelsea Craddock when she was hit with a breakup, health issues, and loss of friendships. She turned towards her faith but found that even still she felt lonely. She started to crave a Christian community. She started to think if others felt like she did and didn’t know where to turn. She needed a solution.
She started an Instagram page where she would post encouraging, faith-filled photos, videos, and messages to help herself and others combat the loneliness epidemic. However, she found that through her Instagram page, followers only wanted to engage more. Chelsea wanted to keep them engaged and let them know they weren’t alone but didn’t know where to start. I wanted to help create that solution.
The Solution
Good News Sunrises needed a website that would help the user be engaged and stay engaged while growing their faith and growing their community.
Utilizing WordPress, I created a website to help users be more engaged with the brand as well as answer some of the questions that could not be answered through Instagram.
Competitor Analysis
Before creating the site, I focused on competitor analysis. I know that other faith-based companies had a digital presence and wanted to analyze what they were doing vs. how GNS did it better. I found that the two most threatening competitors were “Live Original” and “YouVersion” most commonly known as the Bible app.
With this research, I focused on how GNS could be unique. Live Original is only targeted for women so I knew that I could target men as well as women to GNS for a competitive advantage. Another way to be unique was to list YouVersion as a resource on GNS since one of the goals of the community was to deepen the user’s knowledge of Jesus Christ and what better way to do this than the Bible.
Brand Identity
Before creating a prototype, I knew that we would have to lock in a brand for GNS. I worked with Chelsea to find what colors she was looking for as well as typography. I wanted to get a feel of the identity she wanted behind GNS. She loved sunrises (hint at the inclusion of sunrises in the brand name.) So I found pictures to help her figure out what she was looking for and we landed on a primary and secondary color palette.
I also mocked up some logos and went through a few different variations before landing on the final version.
Creating the design system was easy after we finalized the colors and logos.
Prototyping
It was then time for me to start prototyping. Talking with the owner, she wanted to focus on community and resources as one of the main reasons to join the community.
Chelsea wanted to incorporate a way to engage with the audience so I created a message board prototype that would allow the users to post topics and share resources that help grow their faith as well as have a forum to talk to people who were walking through the same things they were walking through.
We started sketching out some ideas of how we wanted the website to look.
After sketching out some of the prototype, I started utilizing Figma. I started creating the bones of the prototype so that when I sent it over to Chelsea, she could give some feedback on if she liked where it was going.
Chelsea liked the vision but wanted to change some of the coloring around and had some other additions. We ended up landing on the below for the final website prototype.
User testing
I created the site through WordPress and implemented user testing shortly after to see what I was working with.
User testing allowed me to see the success of the website and what would need to be updated, changed, or removed to help users navigate the site. Things, I looked for while user testing was how the individual interacted with the site as well as if they could find what they were looking for. I wanted the site to be aesthetically pleasing but also wanted it to be easily navigated.
Final product
After working through user testing and implementing feedback, I was able to update the site to be user-friendly and what the audience was looking for while still maintaining the community and interactive aspect of it.
I created a resources page that would allow users to find inspiring resources that helped Chelsea grow her faith in hopes that the audience would engage with the resources as well as a means to grow their knowledge and understanding of Jesus.
Along with adding resources, I created a message board feature on the website. This would allow users to create questions and topics about faith, Jesus, and their journey that other users could interact with. This would help the audience feel like they weren’t alone as well as grow their faith.
I also wanted users to get a sense of Chelsea’s faith journey and what made her want to create this community. I did this by creating an “About Me” page and a “Blog page.” In these pages, Chelsea touches on how she was craving Christian friendships and what drove her to create this faith-based community. With her blog, you can be uplifted with encouraging posts that include scripture.
With her blog, users can be uplifted with encouraging posts that include scripture verses and more of the personality behind who Chelsea is and what drives her faith.
Continuing with creating a sense of community for the end user, I created a “Community” page. On this page, you see pictures and a video that allows the user to think “Wow, I could be a part of this community,” or “I want this for my life.” It would help cure some of the loneliness the users were feeling and invite them into a warm and welcoming space.
Staying in step with making the user feel welcome, I created two forms on the site that they could interact with. One was a prayer request form and another was a blessings received form. These responses are populated on a “Prayer Request” page and a “Blessings Received” page, with the user having the option to remain anonymous.
These pages would help you feel comfortable to pray for others as well as ask them to pray for you, taking away your loneliness and instead making you feel supported and welcomed.
You are no longer alone when you are part of Good News Sunrises.
The Results
Creating this website allows users who are lonely and want to grow their faith and community to feel like they aren’t going through life alone. You can interact in multiple ways through the message board, blog posts, and connect forms. Users can have a place to fuel their faith through inspiring resources and communication with other users.
For future iterations of this website, I would like to add more interactive components as well as more visually appealing pictures and animations. In my user testing, one of the users suggested adding more video or animation and I love that idea, and is something I want to add down the road. I would also like to have a form where users can upload pictures of the friendships they made through GNS. This could help it feel like they are co-owners of the brand and a part of something miraculous.