Generate activity by converting one-off donators into active members of Cancer Council
Our goal for the project was to attract and retain users by forming deeper relationships with them, and we used that as the premise behind re-thinking and re-designing the user experience of the website.
Our high level goals were to:
Connect to users and give them reasons to get involved and become members.
Make the website easy for everyone, everywhere to use.
Modernise and streamline the experience.
My role
I developed the concept and solution alongside one other team member, Gab. I worked on User Research, User Testing, Data Analysis, Wireframing, and Digital Prototyping. I used Sketch and InVision.
Starting from scratch
In the beginning, Gab and I only had our assumptions and no real idea on the motivations and pain points of the users we were trying to build for. Without any pre-existing insights, we reached out to Mahza Ahadiwand, the Senior Executive of Individual Giving at the Children’s Cancer Institute via email to shed light on people’s donating habits and reasons that people stop being involved with a charity.
Were these donating habits and reasons people stop being involved valid and relevant to our goal?
We created a Google Forms survey to validate these responses and our own assumptions. It also served to give us valuable information on the attitudes and behaviours of our target users.
Main reasons people stop being a member:
Donators don’t know how their money is being spent
People value transparency and want to see how they are contributing to a cause. They feel skeptical that their money is being spent on what the charity claims.
Poor service and communication
People are frustrated by the lack of contact from the charity; it makes them feel disconnected.
Never received thanks
People want to receive gratitude for their contributions and to feel appreciated for their efforts.
What is important to people when joining a charity?
The values of the charity align with their own
If they feel a personal connection to the mission of the charity
Transparency
Let’s compare the websites of different charities
We wanted to see what the experience of similar charities was like so we compared Cancer Council’s website to Red Cross, Unicef, and World Vision, focusing specifically on the information architecture, home page layout, donating and membership processes.
Cancer Council
Red Cross
It was discovered that Cancer Council’s website was:
difficult to navigate
the mission and values were not clear, and
membership process was outdated
You can’t build great experiences without knowing who you’re creating for
We had the why and how’s, but who was this for? In order to find out, we had to conduct user interviews. This was critical to understanding the target audience and we found patterns in our research by affinity mapping our interview responses.
Putting a face to our users
The information and patterns we collected from our user interviews served to help us create our 3 main personas. We decided to focus only on Jason for the user journey as the goal for this project was to convert one-off donators to active members. We did this to identify exactly where in the process his pain points were.
Now that we know why, how, and who we were designing for, what pain points to address and where in the journey they were, we started thinking about what we were going to make to achieve our goal.
Making it relevant and accessible
We decided to re-design the website going mobile first as 2 or 3 of our high-level goals were to make it easy for everyone, everywhere to use, and modernising and streamlining the experience.
We started wireframing to visualise our ideas.
After wireframing, we each made 2 separate low fidelity digital prototypes for 3 scenarios: donating, finding out about what Cancer Council does, and becoming a member.
The functionality of the 2 designs were identical; the only differences were in visual design.
Version 1
Version 2
We conducted usability testing and AB testing with these 2 designs and gained valuable insight into which design was more efficient, and why. More importantly, it told us which felt more friendly and which users were more likely to connect to.
Giving Cancer Council a cause,
giving users a reason
We discovered from our own testing that Cancer Council’s purpose and mission statement and weren’t visible from the home page, or even a single click away. This varied greatly from other charities where it was a focus
This was problematic as 2 of the 3 top reasons that users donate or join a charity is if they feel a personal connection to the values, mission, and purpose.
By putting the purpose and mission statement on the home page, upon visiting the website users are instantly given a reason to care.
We added brief overview of their purpose on the home page with a link directly below to read more.
The mission is now on the home page
Clear call-to-actions mean
less users dropping off
If people can’t locate where something is or struggle with completing a task, they’re not likely to spend their time navigating through a broken website, especially if they feel they are already doing a service.
In order to reduce the number of people dropping off, we had to make finding information, and the donating and membership processes as simple and easy as possible.
The simpler it was to do something, the longer people will stay invested.
Being less vague will make
users more incentivised
One thing we noticed very early on is that users don’t have any incentive of become a member. Furthermore, they had very little information on where their money was going and what it was being used for. There was a lack of information, and where there was, it was all very vague.
This lack of incentive also ties back to transparency, which we discovered during our initial research stage to be 1 of the 3 top reasons that people get involved.
People are not going to commit to something they see no value in. The information and incentives had to be clear and accessible.
To combat lack of information
Added an overview on what donations are used for on the donation page.
Give people incentive by providing clear information on what the benefits are.
Restructured information architecture to simplify the process of finding more information
To combat lack of transparency
Gave exact amounts of how donations were being spent to minimise skepticism
Provided users with a breakdown of where their money goes.
Showing appreciation to our donators and members
Not receiving thanks is one of the main reasons that people stop being involved with a charity. This was a simple problem with a simple solution; express gratitude and make people feel that their contribution is valued.
Added a Thank You page after the donating process.
Added a Thank You page after the membership joining process.
How could we minimise the drop off point of one-off donators?
There’s no reason that donating and becoming a member should be separated. We shifted our perspective from looking at it as if it were 2 different things, to both being varying levels of engagement.
Donating was the first step, becoming a member was the second.
To reduce the rate of drop offs after donating, we made becoming a member an extension of it by putting a clear and easy way for users to learn more about it underneath the Thank You receipt. Now, becoming a member doesn't rely on users wanting to and finding the information on their own accord, the information is only a click away.
Added a 'Learn more' button directly underneath the donation receipt.
Bringing it to life
Cancer Council's new mobile first website generates activity by converting one-off donators to active members. It gives users a modern and streamlined experience; making every action as easy and accessible as possible, and provides them with clear reasons on why they should be involved. The new design values transparency and showing gratitude to donators and members.
Next steps
Make the website fully responsive.
Create a dedicated app for existing members where members will be able to create their own fundraising campaigns, check upcoming events, and connect with other members and more.
