Redkite Website Redesign Redkite Website Redesign Redkite is a charity that provides support to children, young people and their families affected by cancer. Redkite came to us with a problem; they believed that their current website was unclear and out of date, making it difficult for their users to access information easily and/or donate. As my final project at General Assembly, I worked within a team of designers to improve Redkite’s website experience through a redesign of the homepage and donation process. Final Prototype Client: Redkite Industry: Not For Profit Team: Client project at General Assembly Duration: 2 Weeks Project Skills: Competitive Research, Heuristic Evaluation, Interviews, Surveys, Treejack/Card sorting, Sitemap, Sketching, Wireframes, Prototyping, Hi-Fidelity UI Screens, User Testing Project Brief Through a kick-off project meeting with the client, we were able to establish the business goals for the project. 1. Provide support services & information to existing and new users. 2. Increase engagement of existing and new users to donate online. Our project goal was to understand who Redkite’s key users were, what information they seek and also to understand the key motivating factors of people whom donate to charity. Discovery & Research We started with our own heuristic evaluation of the Redkite website and also performed a competitive analysis with their key competitors. This was a quick way to compare and contrast what the current site was doing well/poorly, and what other sites were doing better that we could implement or recommend within our re-design. Guerrilla Testing At the beginning of our research, we conducted guerrilla testing of the existing Redkite website to understand how people currently find information and view the site. In doing this with 8 users, we uncovered areas that could be improved in our redesign. Some of the key problems included: There were multiple ways to search for information & support. People were mostly clicking on ‘How we can help’, but were unhappy that there was no drop down selection. 25% of people were looking at the side panel to search by persona which they found was placed too small on the side of the page. The layout was cluttered with too much information and poor image quality. People commented that the image quality on the site felt poor resulting in a perception of the organisation being less credible and professional. People also felt the layout was cluttered and there was too much information to choose from. The donation form felt messy and hard to scan. People felt that the form fields were too close together and the amount of details they had to fill in was overwhelming. Our aim was to simplify this form to make it more scannable for users to fill out. Key Findings It was time to speak to real users. Through looking at Redkite’s google analytics over the past year within Australia, we were able to see who the main audience was accessing the site and their behaviours. 70% of these people were women with the main age group visiting between the ages of 25-44 years Users visited the homepage first, then Support in the first page path. The most number of pages per session people (55%) look at is 2 pages deep. 56% of people use desktop to view the Redkite website. We interviewed 13 of Redkite’s users comprising of: 6 people who support someone with cancer; 1 ex-cancer patient; 1 social worker; 5 people who currently donate to charity (Redkite or other charities). In gaining a richer understanding of the user journey through these interviews, we then sent out 2 surveys to get some quantitative results. 10 People completed the survey for Redkite, and 88 people completed the survey about charity donations. As a team we compiled all the findings and began to draw out the key findings from our research, synthesising our research into themes. These were the key insights we gained that helped shape the direction of the redesign: Define & Synthesise We developed 2 personas that were a reflection of the trends we found from speaking to people through user research. These personas helped us to create scenarios to ensure our users goals were met in our redesign. Information Architecture We had found throughout initial testing that there were some problems with the current Information Architecture. Users had difficulty in quickly finding the information they were looking for, and were left feeling overwhelmed due to the lack of categorisation under ‘How we can help’. We created a drop down menu under ‘how we can help’ with 4 created categories and tested this using a manual treejack exercise. Through a series of iterations, we were able to create a final version which successfully allowed users to navigate more easily. Feature prioritisation Having established our users goals through research, we created an MVP for the project by determining the ‘must have’ features that we would accomplish in our 2 week time frame. In our redesign we planned to address the following: Clearly understand who Redkite is & how they can help. Help users to find information and support quickly and easily. Inform users where donation funds go. Provide easy access to a support network. Improve layout & visuals. Design Phase We then compiled a list of features that would address areas of our MVP, leading straight into a design studio with our team. The design studio was a great way to get everyone on the same page, pulling out ideas from each design that met our business and user goals best. Our focus was on the homepage layout as per the brief from our client, however I also designed a new process for the donation form. From here, we developed low-fidelity wireframes, which I took through to hi-fidelity designs. Usability Testing We went through a series of iterations testing on 7 users in total. I developed a usability script to ensure that each test was conducted in the same manner. Through user feedback we uncovered key issues within our designs, and so worked on revised solutions. We changed ‘Bereavement Support’ to ‘Redkite Social Workers’ as users found this confronting when visiting the site for Hope. Users felt there was not enough transparency information on the distribution of donation funds. They also were finding the ‘real story’ a bit repetitive to the section above which was a showcase of real stories. I included infographics to show transparency where the donation funds are distributed and also removed the extra story and replaced with anecdotes to describe ways people have been helped before. On the donation page, users commented the original design looked more like donation “packages”, rather than representations of where Redkite distribute their donation funds. I used infographics and text explanation to lessen the look of packages and repositioned them below the donation page so users didn’t get confused with this being the first bit of information they were presented with. See the Final Hi Fidelity protoype here Final Prototype Next Steps As this project went for only 2 weeks, there is still work to be done on the rest of the Redkite website in order to prepare it for a re-launch. My next step recommendations would be: Perform a content audit of the service pages to help determine a more comprehensive IA system. Conduct further research into the younger age demographic using the site (15-24 years) to find ways to best cater for them. Make the site mobile responsive to cater for all users. Key Learning This project taught me a lot about managing client relationships throughout the UX process which is not often a prescriptive process. Open communication and a clear direction was essential in making this project a success. Project Skills Competitive Research Heuristic Evaluation Interviews Surveys Treejack/Card sorting Sitemap Sketching Wireframes Prototyping Hi-Fidelity UI Screens Usability Testing Project Tools Sketch Optimal Sort Photoshop Illustrator InDesign Keynote