This project evaluated the information architecture for New York Cares website and proposed a design to help users find the event easier.
New York Cares helped organizations to recruit volunteers and at the same time helped volunteers to find the volunteer projects they care about.
The manager team wanted to update their website that served New Yorkers for more than 10 years.
Stakeholder Interview
We met with the stakeholders to understand their concerns, goals and resources for their future website.
Survey on Users
NY Cares did not deploy web analytic tools, so we decided to use survey to know demographics, device usage, donation behavior etc.
Observation
We are not our users. We observed how our 5 participants finished our assigned tasks like finding the volunteer event and donating.
Usability on Search Bar
Inconsistent Design
Inconsistency in web design make volunteers unsure of signing up. Because the website is their first access point, they want to be able to trust the website and feel confident that they will have a good time.
Weak Information Hierarchy
Both the volunteer manager and interview participants said the front page is information overwhelming.
Objective
How can we redesign the website to make the search experience smoother for volunteers?
- The user flows for all of three types users volunteers, donors and nonprofits should be separated.
- The website should have a better information hierarchy so the website would not only become more accessible but more convincing.
- Although limited in funding and web analytics, New York Cares has a close community and we can recruit participants from the existing user list.
“The homepage is important, but we have too many information to layout.” – Volunteer Manager (Stakeholder meeting)
“This site is not convincing or welcoming to me.” – Participant (Interview with First time user)
Participants were lost in the global navigation when they were asked to find a volunteer project. (Observation )
- Increased information hierarchy and access for volunteers, donors, and service seekers.
- Streamlined the search process by prioritizing the search bar, clarifying filters, and revamping card design.
- Used responsive design for the mobile experience.
Homepage: Search-based, Minimalist in design
Navigation: A global navigation with 2-3 main items & sticky navigations
Search-bar: Front and centered, Narrow search bar with zip-code search
Item page: Include variety of images, weighted fonts, filtered jumps
Mobile page: minimalist design with prominent search bar and hamburger navigation
- Went smoothly — the majority of participants matched groupings that aligned with our intentions.
- Participants struggled the most with broad labels. The ‘availability’ card and ‘nonprofit & schools’ category made users unsure if these labels were specific to them or the site.
- Participants had trouble grouping volunteering causes. Cards such as ‘environment’ and ‘arts & culture’ were also placed into the ‘about us’ category.
- Many users “failed” the intended tasks due to labeling and placement confusion.
- Participants tend to avoid the search bar to find opportunities. They may be confused and thought the search bar is for a site-wide search.
- Users struggled most for tasks related to ‘nonprofit, schools, & partners’ as they were unsure what the labels meant. We realized we needed to be more specific in labeling as well as adding a separate, local entrance for “nonprofits” that does not confuse volunteers seeking services.
- When participants were asked to find a volunteering opportunity to educate children, we found that some participants went with different search filters such as ‘location’ than going straight into ‘cause.’ We realized that participants may have different preferences for other filters and will take more steps. Unfortunately, the tree test marked these routes as “failures” because they weren’t the first action taken.
- Simplifying the main navigation bar from 6 to 3 items.
- Providing multiple routes to certain navigation items such as setting portals on the home page.
- Maintaining most labels with small adjustments such as “Ways to Volunteer” to “Volunteer”.
We matched our users to the desktop/mobile tasks based on previous research findings that suggest:
- Volunteers are most likely to use both desktop/mobile to seek opportunities
- Donators are most likely to use their mobile to donate, and nonprofits are most likely to use their desktop to seek volunteers.
- The tasks range from the level of complexity.
- Volunteers had the most complex task with a fixed location, day of the week, time, and cause to make sure they could seek an opportunity with our filters.
- Donators and nonprofits were assigned easier tasks to make sure our navigation and labeling system would direct users successfully to the page.
The client enjoyed our presentation especially for our low-fi evaluation and homepage portals.
For the next time, I would do several things differently:
1. Involved stakeholders in our site mapping process.
2. Conduct open card sorting first to create a site map and then evaluate it with a close card sort and tree testing.
3. Deploy design system into the website redesign project.
I will miss your team!