Caroline Chisholm Society
Streamlining the process of managing online inventory in the bargain corner of IKEA
UX / Website Design — Community Services
Project Overview
Caroline Chisholm Society is a not-for-profit charity organisation that provides social support services to families.
The organisation services those with children ages 5 years and under, however service eligibility depends on residential catchment area due to government funding clauses.
The organisation's Head of Impact and CEO were concerned about the 'clunky' website experience, navigation and wanted to increase donations.
Miro
Figma
Google Drive
Microsoft Teams
WordPress
Qualtrics
Tools
Role
Website Designer
Quick Look
Problem
The organisation was receiving a large volume of calls regarding topics that were covered on the website and wanted to increase donations.
Calls were most frequently about…
Items that the charity is able to receive as material aid donations
Inquiries from ineligible families
Accessing services provided by the organisation
Challenges
Limited funding to make changes to a custom-built website with limited plug-ins
Attaining a clear and unified understanding of client eligibility criteria
Re-structuring a clunky navigation and website structure.
Process
Heuristic Evaluation to address initial UI issues
5 User Interviews to understand user pain points and requirements
2 Contextual Inquiries to identify usability issues at a lower level
Survey of 7 participants to understand donor behaviour
Analysis of qualitative and quantitative data collected
Drew user journeys in Miro inspired by the inspiration website and reorganised navigation.
Utilised AI to mock-up a bare-bones wireframe of the website layout.
Met with developers of the external contractor company to discuss costings — realised changes would be too expensive and plug-ins were susceptible to cause slow website loading speeds.
Held a collaborative workshop with practitioners, admin staff and leadership to come to a collective understanding on eligibility criteria
Ideated 2 - 3 solutions to address eligibility criteria and receivable donation goods.
Conducted an audit of navigation with Head of Impact to simplify menu panel and reorganise website structure.
Tested solutions as simple mockups in Figma with 3 users — identifying issues with the ideal design and making changes.
Meeting with Head of Impact to send requirements of the website change to the developers including:
Decision tree + UI mockup for an interactive eligibility checker
Decision tree for an interactive and succinct view of goods the organisation can receive as donation.
UI changes such as applying radius, changing how sub-menu panels appeared, structure of the footer and the length of text across pages.
Solution
Streamline website structure into related groupings and increase length of pages with succinct and helpful SEO-relevant content.
A client eligibility checker that informs visitors of what services they are eligible for with the organisation.
A Directory of Services in instances where clients are not eligible.
A clean and strict presentation of items receivable by the organisation.
Impact
Decrease number of calls and emails regarding goods that can be donated.
Reduce instances of non-receivable goods donations from the public that need to be disposed of by the charity.
Greater clarity amongst staff, volunteers and leadership regarding client eligibility.
In my first meeting with the Head of Impact and CEO of the charity, I sought to understand their goals for the website redesign and who and what they believed the website was for. I also had a series of clarifying questions about how they worked as an organisation.
We came up with groups of potential website visitors and stakeholders to the organisation.
The senior leadership team were interested in implementing specific pathways for each type of target user they expected to use their services and referenced the Brave Foundation website ↓
Discovery
I interviewed 5 users and conducted 2 contextual inquiries where I asked users to perform specific tasks in the existing website.
This initial meeting was a good introduction to the organisation and clarified the services offered by the organisation, however I wanted to hear users and stakeholder perspectives on how the website was currently serving them.
Interview Participants fit into the profiles of:
Single Mother
CCS Receptionist
Grant Funding Officer
Young Mother
Rotary Volunteer
Social Worker at CCS
Interview Notes
Interview Findings
Survey Findings — Donor Perspectives
"People are not often aware that to access CCS’ services you actually need to be a client already."
"sometimes CCS is unable to help them as these people are outside of the catchment area."
"there was confusion about the eligibility side of things."
"CCS cant do a whole lot for family violence related issues."
"How intake works for getting into the Integrated Family Services program."
"Doesn't show what current projects are on at CCS."
"…would like to be informed more frequently about what the Society does with the funding they received. Doesn't need to be super frequent…"
"…the Make a Difference video was 4 and a half minutes long — as a working mum I can't focus for that long"
"Our story and about us was hard to find — the menu navigation was clunky"
"We look for annual report and just to see who's involved and other publications"
"Photos or interpreters or languages services available [make websites more welcoming]"
"I search online first and then speak to people after to confirm. Online gives you broad information."
"At the time, my child didn't know English so they asked for emergency words in my language like water, toilet – I felt like I could trust them a bit more."
"I felt comfortable going in person and seeing the [facilities] in real life."
"So mothers and children — so no men I’m guessing."
“Do they still help if there is a father involved?”
"…might be in financial difficulty or domestic violence but would you go there if the abusers are there?"
"Don’t even know what Bubbles for Babies means…"
"We look for annual report and just to see who's involved and other publications"
"We cant measure what hasn't happened — sometimes the outcome of our work is the absence of trauma or…abuse."
"[A dad] said he couldn't accept [the material aid pack] because he didn't want to be taking away from the mums"
"…if your client hasn't reached the metric where they're supposed to be — there on their own? Sorry…and thats where we come in."
"It's these little things that make life just a little better for them — that was the genesis at the start as well — it's just being there [for clients]"
"[Client] didn't have much she wanted to work on — she was just very depressed and lonely."
"when we close with a family — one month later and three months later we give them a call or an email or we go and visit just to check in. Which government doesn't fund."
"The wheels can fall off quite quickly as you can imagine…and we've got families that aren't necessarily proactive as well — they might not reach out for services themselves and they might need a familiar person to call them and ask 'how are things really?'."
Inclusivity
Although 80% of families helped by CCS in the past financial year were pregnant women, there was still demand from fathers — which the website did not represent well.
Client Eligibility
Volunteer, staff and leadership lacked unified clarity on what criteria the client had to meet in order to be eligible for certain services.
Updates
Funders wanted more regular updates on how the grants given to the organisation had been used and felt there were missed opportunities to update the website with current and upcoming initiatives.
Prior to our first meeting, I conducted a heuristic evaluation of the current website and identified the following issues:
Match between System and the Real World
User of vague names and labels such as 'Make a Difference', 'Programs' vs 'Services' and 'Bubbles for Babies'.
Users required to click multiple times to enter and exit each sub-section of 'Services', 'Make a Difference' and 'Our Story'.
Flexibility and Efficiency of Use
Error Prevention
Recognition rather than Recall
Aesthetic and Minimalist Design
Mistakes (disconnect in mental model) where users wanting to donate goods select 'Donate' which takes them to the donate funds page where excess text causes them to briefly mistake it for the goods donation page.
'Translate' and 'Quick Exit' button lacking any visual cues for non-native English speakers to understand functionality to use.
Clunky and outdated user interface. Use of harsh colours. Unclear visual hierarchy.