Ouelessebougou Alliance Website Redesign — Design Process
By: Alyona Collard
Tags: Ui Ux Design, UX, Web Design

About the Project

Ouelessebougou Alliance is a Utah based non-profit organization that helps people in Mali, Africa by providing sustainable programs in health and education. They needed help updating their website in order to reach a new younger audience and promote online donations.

Planning and Discovery

Constraints:

We had to keep the identity of the organization: colors, logos.

We didn’t have a budget for major upgrades or research.

We had to reuse content from the original website.

Discovery:

We started out by taking a close look at the existing website and by making assumptions about the target audience and their behaviors. We did Heuristic Review of the website, and discovered multiple design flaws that needed to be addressed during the design stage. We created a list of design principles that we wanted to implement in the new design. We reviewed the information architecture and found that it was very inefficient and complicated, so we thought of the ways to fix it. We also planned our research strategy.

Research

For our research we conducted online surveys. We surveyed 158 people and asked them questions about their donation habits and behaviors: if they donated in the past, what amounts, preferred method of payment, what motivates them to donate, and what makes not want to donate to a certain charity, how they find charities to donate to, and so on. After we collected and processed results we also conducted some interviews to clarify some findings that we had from the surveys.

Design

We started working on the visual design of the website by creating sketches and sharing ideas of what each page would look like. Then we moved on to creating wireframes and surface comps. Wireframes helped us decide on overall layout and structure of the website. Surface comps show what finished pages would look like in detail.

Testing and Validating

To perform testing and validate our design decisions we built a click through prototype of the mobile website.

Test Results:

The majority of the feedback we received from our usability tests was positive.

3-step donation process — They found that it made the process simpler and less overwhelming.

The option to donate to a specific program — A few participants mentioned that this made the donation more personal for them.

Videos and images — These elements helped engage the participants and provide a connection through visuals.

Stats — They liked the inclusion of the stats on the landing page; it gave the organization more impact and credibility.

Gist of the site — From the landing page, it was obvious to the participants that the site was for a charity that aids those in other countries.

Conclusion

Working on this project allowed me to experience multi-step UX design process from a concept, to a tangible product. It was a very interesting process and I learned a lot. I enjoyed working in a team, and have realized that having multiple perspectives in a design process like this helps a lot. I also have learned that UX design is user centered and we truly have to focus and try to understand our users before we can try and deliver a good product.

Alyona Collard is a student in the Digital Media program at Utah Valley University, Orem Utah, studying Interaction & Design. The following article relates to the Final Website Redesign Project in the DGM2240 Course and representative of the skills learned.