Project 440
UX RESEARCH – UX DESIGN – WEB DESIGN
CLIENT
Project 440 prepares young musicians to use their musical gifts to transform lives and transform communities.
BRIEF
Conduct full site audit of the current website design and leverage UX best practices and standards to recommend site improvements to help achieve the Organization’s desired goals.
Implement the recommended design improvements
Timeline: 5 months
Platform: Website
PROBLEM
Website does not effectively tell the story of the organization's work causing to potentially miss donations and student's sign ups.
MY ROLE
Owned the UX project from research all the way to implementation.
Worked together with the Managing Director and Marketing Committee.
Website went live in November 2018.
Visit live website: project440.com
Discovery & Insights
STAKEHOLDER INTERVIEW
The organization wanted to inform current/potential program participants, parents of program participants, and donors of their offerings.
The general feedback from the board Marketing Committee was that the overall design of the site did not convey a necessary level of professionalism, it was utilitarian and did not effectively tell the story of the organization.
FULL SITE AUDIT
To find the websites current strengths and weaknesses, I conducted a heuristic evaluation of the site’s usability, layout, information architecture, brand, visuals, content, social media, and SEO.
Though I audited and updated 25+ pages of the site, I felt that the Homepage and Support pages where the most crucial.
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The organization's site had a complex navigation
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There was no immediate, clear CTA or course of action for the visitors to take in order to learn more about the organization's doing, importance, and impact of their work
- Too many blocks of text, not enough imagery to help the storytelling
- The website was not optimized to display properly on mobile
- Homepage and Support pages designs were basic and unengaging
RESEARCH
My research on nonprofits, charities, and people's donating behaviors/motivation shows that donors and prospect donors like to know:
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A STORY. Who is the organization is helping?
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The MISSION. What is the organization doing to help the cause?
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The IMPACT of the mission
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TRANSPARENCY on the organization’s operations and how donations are handled.
COMPETITIVE RESEARCH
Based on those criteria, I researched the organizations mentioned by stakeholders as well as other popular nonprofits.
I found VH1 Save The Music's site layout, UNICEF's visual storytelling, and Charity Water's fundraising strategies to be very effective in getting their message across.
Designing Solutions
NAVIGATION
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Added Announcement Bar to communicate important dates and events
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Trimmed the main navigation options (College Fair is temporary)
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Made support CTA stand out in a solid red button
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Increased contrast between the navigation links and the banner image
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Made active/hovered link purple to let visitors know what page they are on
HOMEPAGE
Based on my research, a more engaging new home page layout would be as follows:
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Start right off with a short but strong statement
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What is Project 440's mission?
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Who and how does Project 440 help?
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Program offerings
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What is the impact of the donations?
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Latest news and blog posts to stay up to date with Project 440's activities
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Ways to stay connected: Newsletter signup and social media Icons
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Students testimonials
NEW SUPPORT PAGE
- Reduced text to 3 simple columns
- Explained how "Donating while shopping" works
- Added a third option to show other ways visitors can help spread the word of Project 440's mission
- Reminded visitors of the impact their donations can have and the programs they are helping fund
OTHER WAYS TO SUPPORT
With the increasing number of fundraising tools available, the ways in which visitors can support Project 440's cause also increases. I chose the platforms Crowdrise and Facebook because of their socially interactive characteristics
Spreading the word is almost as important as donating money. Exposure of the organization's mission can lead to new people or organizations that would like to join and support them.
User Testing Insights
DEFINITION OF SUCCESS
To inform and engage with the least amount of work from the visitors (not clicking too many pages or reading long paragraphs of text) in order to help them make the decision to support Project 440.
“From the homepage alone, are you able to understand the organization’s mission?”
Yes
88.0.%
No
4.0%
Not Sure
8.0%
– 88% "Yes, to educate and inspire young musicians and develop civic-minded, entrepreneurial leaders".
– 8%“Not sure if it is a volunteer organization or if it is some type of college for musicians”
– 4% "No"
–78.3% "Yes, it is clearly presented here, and I can also click on the "Our Mission" button to get more information. Works very well."
– 21.7% "No. I would not donate until I understood their mission".
Yes
78.3%
No
21.7%
“Is there enough information on the homepage to help you make the decision to donate?”
GENERAL USER FEEDBACK
Overall, very positive feedback on the design, layout, images, and the organization’s work:
– "The design looks nice and professional"
– "Good layout. It clearly explains what the project 440 about"
Comments suggest they were engaged and interested to learn more about Project 440:
– "I think it sounds like a wonderful program and think it is needed. I would gladly donate to a cause like this and only wish something like this had been around when I was a young musician!"
NEXT STEPS
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The word "Project" confused some users into thinking that the organization was a volunteer's after-school program.
– "It is a nice looking website, but one of many of these types. Needs a clearer message".
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Changing some of the copy would clarify that the "project" is a nonprofit organization.