The Problem

Advocates for Children CASA is a non-profit organization that trains volunteers to become court appointed special advocates for abused and neglected children. Unfortunately, they are having trouble convincing new users on their website to volunteer or donate to their cause.

The Opportunity

CASA needs to redesign their site so that it is more efficient, informative, and engaging to new users, and can ultimately increase the number of people that sign up to volunteer or donate.

CLient

Advocates for Children CASA

Team

Jonathan Laing
Zoe Pasternack
Delany Reimers
Justin Heckel

Turnaround

5 Weeks

Product

Website
(WordPress)

Deliverables

Data Analysis
Personas
Information Architecture
App Map
Mid-to-High Fidelity Wireframes
Working WordPress SIte

User Research

Competitive Analysis

The first step our team took in the research process, was to see how other non-profits and children’s organization structured their website. We looked at nearly two dzen organizations and were able to notice some reoccurring themes.

What they did well:

Donate & volunteer buttons in the “F-pattern”
Multiple calls to action on each screen
Highlight tax credits in more obvious location
Build empathy & trust through emotion/ storytelling
Bright call to action colors
Pop up featuring news and event information
Simplified menus

User Interviews

The next step in our research was to talk to people within the CASA organization and gain an understanding on why they decided to join the organization. We were lucky to talk to five different member and left with some key takeaways.

Key Takeaways

Learned more about their reasons for getting involved
These were extremely passionate about helping in their community
They formed deep bonds with the kids they worked with
They felt like a lot of important information was lacking in the current website
Needed to focus more on the emotional impact CASA has on volunteers and their kids

Listen below to one of our conversations with a CASA volunteer.

Listen

User Surveys

In order to get more quantitative date, our team create separate surveys and targeted three important groups.

CASA volunteers
Potential volunteers or donors
CASA trainees that didn’t complete training

Complete Survey Results

Site Analytics

Data taken from Google Analytics embedded on current CASA site

User Info

Over 70% were new visitors
Mostly in the 25-34 age group
Most visitors were on desktops

Page Traffic

Home page gets nearly half of all traffic
77 total pages
Only a handful of those pages see any considerable traffic

Bounce Rate

Large bounce rate on home page
Multiple levels of interaction

Session Data

Vast majority only visit once
Most sessions last under 10 seconds
Most visited page (Home) is also the least optimized and has longest load times

Affinity Mapping

With the data taken from interviews, survey results, analytics, and competitive analysis, our team was then able to construct an affinity map outlining trends and pain points.

Trends

Want to volunteer for a cause they care about
Volunteering based on need
Volunteering based on the event
For current volunteers, personal connections were important

Information Architecture

With 77 total pages on the existing site and an overwhelming breadth and depth of the top navigation, it was clear to our team that information architecture would be crucial part of making this site less confusing to the user. With the help of an open card sort study, we were able to group and streamline the site’s current content.

Old Site Map

New Site Map

Personas

Four clear personas began to take shape over the course of our research, along two different axes, donators/volunteers and existing/potential members.