The Challenge

WEL is a small nonprofit organization,  based in Atlanta, GA whose main focus is on building a school for kids in a remote area of Adulala, Ethiopia. WEL is interested in telling their story by rebuilding its current responsive website and rebranding its logo. Currently, the website serves but would like to improve the look of their visual design and its usability. They want a responsive website that is user friendly.

The Solution

A user research UX/UI, Visual Design, and based on the mission and value of WEL design a logo that fits with the new brand. Finally, create a prototype to show the functioning nonprofit organization website that provides pathways for people to get involved in donating.

EMPATHIZE

Market Research |Competitive Analysis |1:1 Interviews 

Research Findings

Market Research

To understand the industry of NGO better I started off by doing online research including statics, demographics, and motives

Charity Statistics

67% of nonprofits across the globe are set up to accept donations on their website 34% of nonprofits have paid for advertising on social media. One nonprofit used online channels to surpass their year-end fundraising goals. Now, more than ever, nonprofits are turning to online platforms as an inexpensive and effective way to reach a broader audience. 31% of donors worldwide give to NGOs, NPOs & charities located outside of their country of residence.41% give in response to natural disasters. Giving to Education charities was up 6.2% to $58.9 billion (14% of all donations).

General Charitable Giving Statistics

30% of annual giving occurs in December.

10% of annual giving occurs in the last 3 days of the year.

77% believe everyone can make a difference by supporting causes. 4.5 is the average number of charities each person supports.

64% of donations are made by women. 69% of the population gives.

Charitable Giving Demographics

30% of donors aged 75+ say they have given online in the last 12 months and on average give 25% more frequently than younger generations.

49% of Baby Boomer donors are enrolled in a monthly giving program of those 21% give through Facebook fundraising tools. Answer voice calls, check email regularly, use text messaging and social media.

56% of Gen Xers attend fundraising events. Greatest gen. most likely to give through direct mail campaigns and donate physical goods.

88% of the Greatest gen. gives to charity, donating an annual average of $1,367 across 6.2 organizations.

73% of companies prefer to have deeper partnerships with a smaller number 85% of companies in the US have a formal domestic corporate giving program in place vs. only 45% with a formal international program.

Competitive Analysis

I did competitive analysis research to see how other organizations run their business. What makes them different, and why they are successful. The research gave information on why some nonprofit organizations have better support (donor) than others.

Primary Research

1:1 Interview

Based on the research I came up with interviews that could help the organization. I prepared case study questions and reached out via email, phone, zoom, text, and interviewed users who have experience or are involved with charity/nonprofit organizations. Though it took a long time to respond than I anticipated, they all responded. View Interview

DEFINE

Personas | Empathy Maps |POV + HMW

Personas

I synthesized the information I gathered that represents the ideal targeted users, their needs, goals, and pain point to created user personas which helped me identify users' similarities and have a better understanding of my findings.

EMPATY MAP

I looked over the personals, thought about their decision making in their day to day life choices and motivation, and created an empathy map for each.

POV+HMW

Based on the primary research I came up with a Point of view statement for our users this will help to create HOW MIGHT WE questions to identify users' problems and help brainstorm for a possible solution.View Table.

IDEATE

Feature Roadmap | Sitemap | Task Flow| User Flow

Sitemap

I then visited another NGO site to understand their layout and created a sitemap that will represent the information architecture.

Task Flow

After finishing the sitemap, I created a task flow where users likely will have common flows and how they view the site

User Flow

The user flow helped me see different ways a user can interact with the site and process of user’s decision making which will help me identify and focus on my design process.

DESIGN

Mid-Fi wireframes | Logo | Branding| Style Tile| Hi-Fi Design | UI Kit

Sketchs

I started out with the high-level ideas and sketched Mid- Fi wireframes and digitalize using Sketch, this helped me visualize the layouts and the flow of interaction with the different devices before moving forward.

Branding

I looked over WEL brand attributes to establish a clear visual communication of WEL branding and look at sites like Pinterest for inspiration. Then sketched what I thought would be a possible match for WEL logo. I decided to base my choice of color that represent the brand values (Trustworthy, Hope, enthusiastic, welcoming, enthusiastic).

Style Tile

High Fidelity Design

I added what I thought is important for WEL to represent by applying the color palette, fonts, images, and icons to the wireframes and see the visual representation of the site then applied.

UI KIT

I organized and matched all of the individual elements from my prototype to create the UI KIT so that other designers, and developers know each element and its purpose.

TEST                

Prototype | Usability Testing | Affinity Map

Prototype

Affinity Map

I created an affinity map to better understand my observation and visualize my findings from usability tests, following users’ feedbacks helped me to identity arrays in a way that will support my recommendation in decision making.

Final Prototype

Conclusion

One of the reasons that interested me in taking this project was to see how I can help using my UX UI experience for a small non-profit organization in telling their story. Doing so I was overwhelmed by how huge non-profit organization is and how each has its own approach to get to their goals. The research helped me to know what to focus on in defining the problems, what to prioritize to fulfill my client's needs.