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The Africa In Me

A website redesign that helps users to understand the mission of the organization effectively and attracts more users

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Problem

The users could not find the information about the organization and its mission so they could not trust to donate.

Deliverable

Interview, Competitive audit, Sketches, UI, Wireframe, Prototype

Role

Team leader, User researcher, Interaction designer ( team of 5 designers )

Duration

Three weeks

Outcome

40% increase in the user engagement

OVERVIEW

AFIM is a nonprofit organization established by an inspiring woman who is from Africa. The organization provides food and job security for less privileged families in 4 counties in Africa. As one of the volunteer family, my ambition was to help AFIM grow and raise more users.

Having the goal, I interviewed people who donate online, and I discovered the current homepage was not effective and efficient enough in showing the mission and goals of the organization. So, I took initiative and suggested redesigning the website for our first anniversary. This is where my team and I started the process.

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As one of the AFIM team, my ambition was to make an impact and help AFIM grow in its mission.

PROCESS

DISCOVER

DEFINE

IDEATE

DELIVER

IMPACT

Interview

Usability testing

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Finding the problem

Competitive audit

Cart sorting

Sitemap

Sketch

Wire frame

Rapid prototype

Usability testing 

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DISCOVER

Usability Testing & Interview

To learn more about the users and uncover their pain points, we conducted a usability testing with ten users on the current website. The goal of the test was to learn about their experience using the website and their expectation of using the website.

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What users revealed during the interview

DEFINE

Finding the Problem

Observing the users during the test, and talking with them after finishing the requested task, we found:

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  • The inconsistency and unprofessional design discourage the users

  • The homepage is lack of enough information about the organization and the donation process

  • The unclear information confuses the users about where and how the money used

  • The confusion consequently stops them from trusting the organization

  • The users have to spend a long time applying for the volunteer opportunities

IDEATION

Competitive Audit

For the next step, we looked into similar organization with similar missions and target  to find out what makes them more reliable for their users and what kind of terms they use in their contents. We summarized the results thorough observation of the 10 similar websites:

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  • The common humanized language used in the navbar

  • Using phrases "Who We Are" and "What We Do" to talk about the mission of the organization

  • The importance of having a volunteer button on the homepage

  • The need for having a search bar on the global bar

Solution

The team analyzed the result of the two research, and we made a list of goals that we decided to focus on: ​

  • Redesigning the homepage and giving more information about the organization to make it trustworthy

  • Improving information architecture to make the navigation smoother

  • Providing information about the founder (to encourage the users)

  • Designing a friendly way of joining as a volunteer 

  • Adding a blog to make the site discoverable

Card Sorting

During the research, I found that the users have trouble navigating the website. Therefore my team and I worked on architecture information and made the sitemap. My goal was to help the user find the information smoothly. I changed the words "Join Us" to "Get Involved" and "About Us" to "Who We Are" to use more humanized and a clear language. 

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BEFORE CARD SORTING

AFTER CARD SORTING

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Sketch

Moving forward, we prepared different sketches and worked through them to reach the final version. During the process, we continued reviewing the users' paint points and the organization’s mission to be sure the final design creates a better user experience.

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Sample of the first sketch our team made

DELIVER

Wireframe

Home Page: the sections that speak about the AFIM mission. 

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Volunteer Page: The users can apply for volunteer opportunities with a short process on one page.

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IMPACT

Before and after the redesign, I conducted a usability test with ten users. As shown below, the time of applying as a volunteer was significantly reduced. Ten out of the ten participants could easily find what they looking for, and eitht of them indicated they were happy with the website's new appearance. 

As a result of the redesign in the next four months we had a 40% increase in user's engagement. 

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BEFORE

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AFTER

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Note: This is a real project I did while working in the organization. However, I have omitted or blurred confidential information/ images in this case study to comply with my non-disclosure agreement. The information presented here is my own and does not necessarily reflect the views of the organization.

What I Learned

Unlashing ideas for finding solutions

It was the first time in my work that I unleashed my imagination to find a solution. Before jumping to the design part, I did immerse research about my users. It is important to learn about their needs and what keeps them there. Result of the research showed how much it was important to put the users in the center. We always should make something that solves their real problem not what we assume about them.


Leadership opportunity

Working in a nonprofit team, gave me opportunities to work on the skills we need in design as a collaboration career.  I took one step further as a leader of a team of two people. It was challenging and I experienced hard moments at first but eventually, I learned how to find the capacity of every individual and focus on what we can do as a team rather than pointing out our weaknesses. 

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