Clearwater was unable to reach development goals due to low interest and trust.
Clearwater was founded to educate the general populace on the importance of preserving the Hudson River and similar river systems. Their organization wasn't clearly and effectively driving interest in their programs, which was hurting their development goals.
How might we improve Clearwater's website so that users are inspired to connect with their local community — and succeed based on an increase in donations and registrations for their annual festival?
Modernizing the site
- Easy to navigate, to build confidence and let visitors search with ease
- A clear source to view the organization's latest blog posts
Creating a new website for the upcoming event
- A fun, distinct design to represent the event and motivate people to explore
- An easy process to buy event tickets
The competition had too much information and an outdated look.
I analyzed 2 direct competitors, plus several indirect ones, against the same goal. Almost all of them presented an overwhelming amount of information — some had outdated sites that didn't help their cause, and low social media followings to match.
The current site was outdated and overflowing with information.
Appearance & Aesthetics
- Lacks a strong call to action
- Design feels busy
- Inconsistent fonts and color scheme
Content
- Packed with text
- Assumes prior knowledge of sailing
Navigation
- No breadcrumbs
- Lacks information hierarchy
Interviewees trust an organization more when they know donations are put to good use.
The goal was to understand what guides people's decision-making around charitable giving — what motivates users to give their time and money to a cause. I conducted 5 user interviews and used SurveyMonkey to broaden the research with outside data.
Research Questions
- What's your preferred method of making a charitable donation?
- How often do you attend charity events?
- What is the deciding factor in whether you attend an event?
- How much would you pay for a ticket, knowing proceeds go directly to the charity?
- Would incentives motivate you to attend? What kind?
- What's the most important element you expect at a charity fundraiser?
- What form of entertainment would you expect to see there?
New Yorkers want to get more involved — and would attend if given the right incentive.
The research showed 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. That led us to an online campaign (web, email, social) for the Great Hudson River Revival — designed to bring more awareness to the organization and attract a new, younger audience.
User flow, sketches, site mapping & testing
From sketches and site mapping through low-fidelity wireframes, I ran usability and A/B testing to sharpen the navigation and content hierarchy before building out a full style guide and final prototype.
- Create a volunteer page with registration, calendar dates, and activities
- Create a donate page outlining its benefits, plus bid events to join
- Create an education page to broaden reach to a younger audience
- Conduct more testing to gather additional user feedback
- Give more consideration to mobile UI
Research, research, research.
Coming into research with an open mind matters. Some genuinely surprising results from the online survey shifted the direction of the project.
Expanding & prioritizing.
A dedicated page for the Hudson River Festival brought more attention to the organization — but the real goal is deeper involvement and donations. I'd love to build out more engagement pages toward that cause.