• Lead Designer

  • Web Redesign, Branding, Information Architecture

  • 3 weeks

Problem

Clearwater was unable to reach development goals due to low interest and trust

Clearwater was founded to educate the general populace as to the importance of preserving the Hudson River and other similar river systems. We have observed that our organization isn’t clearly and effectively driving interest in their programs, which is causing a negative effect on their development goals. How might we improve Clearwater’s website so that users are inspired to connect with their local community and are successful based on an increase in donations and registration for their annual festival?

Solution

Modernizing The Site

  • Easy to Navigate through to build confidence and allows visitors to search with ease.

  • Provides a source to view latest blog posts

Creating A New Website For Upcoming Event

  • Fun design to represent the event - motivates users to look through website

  • Provides a easy process to buy event tickets

Competitive Analysis

The competition had too much information and had an outdated look

I have analyzed 2 direct competitors and indirect competitors surrounding the goal. I found that almost all of them had an overwhelming amount of information. Some had an outdated site which did not help and had low following count on social media.

Heuristic Evaluation

Current site is outdated and overflowing with information

Appearances + Aesthetics

  • Lacks strong CTA

  • Design is busy

  • Inconsistent fonts and color scheme

Content

  • Packed with text

  • Assumes knowledge of sailing

Navigation

  • No breadcrumbs

  • Lacks information hierarchy

User Interviews + Survey Analysis

Interviewees are more likely to trust an organization knowing the donations are being put into good use

The goal was to understand what guides people’s decision-making related to charitable giving. What motivates users to give their time and money to certain causes was needed to uncover and to give a better understanding on what kinds of events and incentives encourage people to donate time and money to certain causes.  5 user interviews were conducted and an outside source. SurveyMoney, was used to grab more information to broaden the research and get a better perspective.

Research Questions

  1. What's your preferred method of making a charitable donation?

  2. How often do you attend charity events?

  3. What is the deciding factor in whether you attend their event?

  4. When attending a charity event how much would you be willing to pay for a ticket knowing that all proceeds will be going directly to the charity?

  5. Would you be motivated to attend if you received any incentives?

  6. What type of incentives would you be interested in?

  7. At a charity fundraising event what is the most important element you expect to experience?

  8. What would be your reasons for attending a charity event?

  9. What would you hope would be the outcome of attending a charity fundraising event?

  10. What form of entertainment would you expect to see at a charity fundraiser?

The Main Insight

New Yorkers want to get more involved + would only attend events if there are incentives.

During the survey and interviews we discovered that a majority of New Yorkers want to get involved in organizations helping their community, and more than half would attend a fundraising event if given incentives, such as branded merchandise.  

Therefore, we believe that New Yorkers will be more encouraged to donate if we create an online campaign (web, email, social media) for the upcoming Great Hudson River Revival which would bring more awareness to the organization and attract a new, younger audience.

User Flow

Sketches

Site Mapping

Low Fidelity + Usability Testing

A/B Testing created a better understanding for the UI Navigation and Content

Style Guide

Final Prototype

If I had more time..

  • Create a volunteer page with registration, specific calendar dates and activities.

  • Create a donate page with its multiple benefits and bid events to join.

  • Create an education page to broaden to their younger audience and raise more awareness. 

  • Conduct more testing - get user feedback

  • Consider mobile UI

Reflections + What I would do differently

  • Research, Research, Research. When conducting research, coming in with an open mind is super important. There were very shocking but important results taken from the online survey that shifted the projected completely.

  • Expanding and Priorities. Even though creating a separate page for the Hudson River Festival would bring more attention to the organization, the idea is still to receive more involvement and donations. Would love to create more engagement pages to bring more awareness to the cause.

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