Grace to You

GTY.org is a Christian platform offering biblical resources for personal growth and discipleship, study and teaching materials, and pastoral and theological training. Version 8 got in the way of those resources, with three core problems:

• outdated visual design compared to modern web standards
• a restrictive search results filtering and sorting mechanism
• no continuity in experience, content presentation, and account management between GTY's website and its apps

As the UX designer, I redesigned GTY.org (version 9) to meet the business need:

• broaden audience reach and improve engagement and retention
• optimize the content architecture
• unify the experience across all of GTY's digital platforms
• keep the site's mission of delivering high-quality theological content

The final designs bring the research, content structure, and design system together across the site, from the homepage to streaming, the store, giving, and the ministry's free offers. Compared with version 8:

+50%

Engaged sessions vs. v8

+30%

Sessions per visit vs. v8

Giving conversion also rose by about 50%. That period followed the passing of John MacArthur, GTY's founder and pastor, which likely drew more attention and giving, so I don't credit the increase to the design alone.

Stream, Listen, and Watch. John MacArthur's teaching, live and on demand, in one consistent media experience.

Shop. From browsing to the cart, the store follows the same design system as the rest of the site.

Give. A simple giving flow, from choosing a gift to reviewing it and a thank-you.

Search, offers, reading, and more. Site-wide search, free resources for newcomers, the blog, daily devotionals, and the story of the ministry.

Business Insights

Stakeholder interviews gathered the organization's goals, challenges, and priorities. They kept the redesign aligned with organizational objectives, grounded it in data rather than assumptions, and built the stakeholders' trust and buy-in.

Key Findings: I convinced the stakeholders that redesigning a website is more than changing its look and feel: the project should improve the site's status quo, answer users' needs based on data and research, and accomplish business goals. With the stakeholders and the development team, we grouped sixteen needs into six priorities:

• user-centric design, with clearer journeys and better onboarding and direction
• intuitive navigation, simplified yet robust search, and improved content organization
• a better mobile experience, with more speed and performance
• giving and business content priority, and improved user data gathering
• content optimization and internationalization, wider global reach, and more consistent branding
• accessibility compliance, real-time chat support, and enhanced security and trust-factor features

User Insights

Google Analytics gave me quantitative data on behavior and performance: sessions, user uniqueness and frequency, demographics, language and location, page views, session duration, bounce rates, acquisition and navigation paths, and devices. Surveys of existing users and employees added pain points, sentiment, and preferences.

Key Findings:

• Users struggled to find specific sermons or resources because of unclear categorization and less efficient search
• Users were frustrated that search results were organized by type, with no simple sorting or filtering mechanism
• Users hit friction in giving when asked about ministry exposure attribution (where they listen to or watch GTY), which made them spend more time than needed and suggested moving it to another experience, such as account creation

Competitive Analysis

I benchmarked GTY.org against similar platforms like Ligonier.org, DesiringGod.org, and TruthForLife.org on content, structure, search, engagement, UX, SEO, and technology stack, and saw trends toward clean UI, robust search, mobile-first approaches, and social media integration.

• Strengths: GTY has a deep sermon archive, a loyal following, and consistent theology
• Opportunities: GTY could expand into interactive or visual content, enhance the mobile experience, and broaden appeal beyond its current core demographic

Content Audit & Information Architecture

I approached the redesign through information architecture, to improve not just the quality of the content but its structure and findability. I cataloged the whole site (sermons, devotionals, articles, videos, and radio archives), categorized each item by type, and mapped the current site map, noting each item's title, URL, type, topic hierarchy, metadata, and place in the navigation. I then assessed each for clarity, relevance, and engagement.

After an SEO analysis, I worked with stakeholders to decide what to update, merge, archive, or remove, and proposed a regular content review as ongoing governance. I redefined categories around user behavior and made labels more human and less internal.

Key Outcome: A simpler content, site, and navigation structure—Listen, Watch, Read, Study, Shop.

Personas, Journeys, and Stories

I created user personas to represent the wants, needs, and behavior patterns of GTY's audience, and used them from deciding which features to include to evaluating requirements. I then mapped user journeys across GTY's platforms (apps, social media, and more), from initial awareness to post-purchase and donation engagement, to show the team the user's needs, pain points, and decision-making.

I wrote user stories for GTY's Agile process, and worked with the Senior Software Architect and the development team to turn them into a prioritized backlog and an MVP list of user needs and stakeholder expectations that guided execution.

With the development team, I identified UI elements that would make development more efficient and fit GTY's technology stack, which also prepared the ground for GTY's style guide and design system.

I brainstormed solutions around intuitive navigation, better search, and a mobile-first progressive web app approach, where the mobile site looks and feels like a native Apple or Android app, and validated them with the Senior Software Architect and the development team.

I then designed four sets of homepage mockups to align the development team and stakeholders on layout, typography, and color before moving to wireframes and prototypes, and to head off misunderstandings later.

The four homepage directions, each explored at full length:

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Wireframes came next. With the Senior Software Architect and the developers, I organized UI elements, components, pages, and journeys into wireframe requirements, which also fed GTY's design system.

I then designed low-fidelity wireframes focused on the structure, functionality, and placement of key content, without colors, typography, or images. They gave the development team and stakeholders a shared view of content priority and how the UI would function before the detailed stages.

Once the stakeholders aligned on the hierarchy and presentation of content through the wireframes, I designed high-fidelity interactive prototypes for mobile, tablet, and laptop/desktop in Axure RP, to simulate interactions, test usability, and refine the design before development. They closely represented the final version, with detailed UI elements, functionality, typography, color, and animation, so stakeholders could visualize the result and approve with confidence.

Challenges: Balancing modern design with the traditional, clean aesthetic that GTY.org's core audience and stakeholders expect. Some stakeholders wanted the simplicity and minimalism of version 8 carried over, which I also saw as the best approach, so as not to frustrate users with a newer site.

Once the stakeholders approved the high-fidelity prototypes, each screen, interaction, and animation closely mirroring the intended GTY v9 experience, I handed them to the development team, working with the Senior Software Architect, for a smooth start to the Agile build.

As the UX designer for GTY v9, I learned that following a structured UX process rigorously is the foundation of design that resonates with users and with the organization's business goals. Iterative validation caught problems before development, documentation gave stakeholders and developers a shared language, a design system and style guide kept the experience consistent, and analytics tied design changes to measurable outcomes. Every wireframe, prototype, and interaction was built to present biblical content clearly, true to the ministry's commitment of “Unleashing God's Truth, One Verse at a Time.”