Music Link Foundation - Website Redesign

Logo redesign by Douglas Siqueira

Mock up design by Douglas Siqueira

Problem: People want to be informed about a non-profit organization in order to make informed donation decisions.

Solution: MusicLink Foundation’s Redesign aims to empower individuals to make informed donation decisions by an accessible information architecture for the donation flow.

Team members: Douglas Siqueira, Emilie Fung, Isabela Villanoy

Tools: Figma, Miro, Google Drive, Google Suite, Github, Visual Studio Code

Role/s: UX Researcher, UX Content Designer

Discovery

Interview Plan

Our group began by conducting 3 user interviews in order to understand the process that people take when making donations. We discovered that individuals who wish to make donations prioritize gaining more knowledge about the organization to make informed choices.

We surveyed 15 participants, ages 25-45, who have experience donating to a cause.

Interview Results

Online survey conducted via Google Forms

  • 53.3% of participants are willing to make donations to an international cause/organization. 

  • 46.7% of them are potential donors, reflecting that they are convertible customers, if the organization used the right marketing strategy

  • 40% are willing to donate through financial means. 

User Interview Quotes

“I think [donating online] is the easiest way to donate, especially nowadays…” - Participant, age 25

“If I see negative reviews online (ex: the organization is not transparent about who they’re helping), I will stop donating and support another organization.” - Participant, age 26

Secondary Research

  • Donating money is one of the top 3 giving behaviours from the World Giving Index (WGI) annual report by Charities Aid Foundation. 

  • In 2021, a 9% increase of online giving was seen in a study of 4,535 nonprofit organizations by the BlackBaud Institute.

  • According to the Blackbaud Institute, the Arts and Culture subsector experienced a 15.2% increase in giving, ranking 2nd in the 2021 Overall Giving Trends by Subsector study.

User Observations

To understand users’ experience with the current website, we asked 3 participants who have never seen the Music Link Foundation website to explore and play with the website, and share their thoughts as they navigated the website.

The top 3 pain points revolved around:

  • the outdated and inconsistent design

  • the lack of content chunking

  • lack of relevant information

  • the various links that lead to separate web pages.

All of these pain points created a bad user experience that made the users feel overwhelmed, disconnected with the brand, and confused about the organization’s purpose. Looking at how information is communicated, we wanted to make sure that we kept user’s engaged and informed of the organization in every key point of the donation journey.

Affinity Diagram of our user interview results

Discovery Insights

  • People were inclined to make online donations, which is a touchless experience that can be associated with the pandemic.

  • People comfortable donating to online organizations when they are informed about the mission, vision and/or purpose of the organization.

  • Donating to arts and culture causes ranked 2nd in the Blackbaud Institute research study, which means that MusicLinks has a potential to meet their funding goals as an arts-based cause.

  • During our user interviews, there was a trend of individuals who prefer either donating online or using an online website as their source of information on a particular cause or organization when donating.

  • Through primary and secondary research, our team was able to focus on the following themes in our website redesign:

Ideation

Summary of User Insights

Motives to make online financial donations:

  • Transparency

  • Genuineness

  • Informative

User needs:

  • Accessible information

  • Convenience

  • Trustworthiness

Improvements:

  • Redesign content architecture and hierarchy

  • Make relevant information more accessible

User Problem

How might we improve the MusicLinks Foundation website to motivate visitors to help support their cause and reach their donation goals?

Storyboard

Updated User Flow

Low fidelity wireframes that focused on content hierarchy, information architecture and navigation to important information.

To validate our UX recommendations, we conducted a total of 2 user tests.

  • Batch 1: Low fidelity wireframe

  • Batch 2: High fidelity prototype

Here are our objectives

  • To know if the website's general design is intuitive enough for the user to know where certain content is

  • To know if the content is clear on the page

  • To see if users will successfully find the donate button/s and successfully make a donation

Batch 1

Results from Batch 1 of user tests

To view low fidelity prototype, select this link: Low-fidelity prototype

Batch 2

Results from Batch 2 of user tests

3 Main User Test Insights (Batch 2)

To view high fidelity prototype, select this link: High-fidelity prototype

Learnings and final thoughts

Finding the MVP

  • Focusing on solving the immediate problem

  • Prioritizing quick wins and creating a strategy to solve the complex UX problems

Working with a tight deadline

  • Valuing each others’ strengths and recognizing pain points.

  • Strategically choosing the proper UX methods that fit our problem statement and goals

Designing our Prototype based on the Front End Development Feasibility

  • Striking a balance between great UX design and feasible code.

Iterate, iterate, iterate!

  • Iterating based on research and data

  • Iterating in the future 

  • Iterate based on stakeholder interviews

  • Features to iterate: to give users an option to donate to a specific program, to add other online payment options, to expand the accessibility features such as contrast and zoom options for senior folk making donations

To view the final presentation deck, click here:

References:

https://doublethedonation.com/tips/matching-grant-resources/nonprofit-fundraising-statistics/

https://www.fraserinstitute.org/sites/default/files/generosity-index-2021.pdf

https://institute.blackbaud.com/charitable-giving-report/overall-giving-trends/

https://www.nytimes.com/2021/10/08/realestate/pandemic-decluttering.html

https://worldpopulationreview.com/country-rankings/most-charitable-countries

https://www.nptrust.org/philanthropic-resources/charitable-giving-statistics/#:~:text=Americans%20gave%20%24471.44%20billion%20in,a%205.1%25%20increase%20from%202019.&text=Corporate%20giving%20in%202020%20decreased,a%206.1%25%20decrease%20from%202019.&text=Foundation%20giving%20in%202020%20increased,a%2019%25%20increase%20from%202019

http://canadahelps.org/

Isabela Villanoy