CASA Non-Profit Redesign
The Citrus County Abuse Shelter Association (CASA) is a private non-profit organization whose mission is to help victims and survivors of domestic violence by providing shelter, safety, intervention, and education, as well as educating the community for social change.
Challenges-Problem Statements
While CASA has created an organization for “domestic violence victims” by connecting users to a website that provides information to reach out and get help, our challenge was to explore different ways to expand and create a more intuitive website design for users by making important information more accessible, and making ways to help more apparent, hopefully leading to an increase in donations and a higher rate of users reaching out for help.
The primary organization demands were:
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Retrieving information about the signs of domestic abuse
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Making the call to action, to donate and reach out for help, more apparent
The Solution
We have redesigned the current CASA website to provide individuals with valuable information with the user in mind. By keeping emphasis on the domestic violence signs and donations, we were able to make a design that gave a clear call to action depending on what the users purpose on the site is. The can get information regarding domestic violence and get involved with the organization.
Our Process
User Research
After reviewing the website content, we expected there are two main user types of CASA:
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Domestic abuse victims looking to get help
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People who are in some way related to these victims and are trying to find help on their behalf
Uncovering the Barriers to Involvement
To gain a better understanding of how we could more effectively address our problem, we conducted a series of 11 user interviews that helped gain a better understanding of the user’s behavior when interacting with the navigation bar, donation button, and accessing the warning signs of domestic violence.
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Questions we needed answered included:
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Are they able to navigate through the site and find what they’re looking for?
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What is the main reason people come to the site?
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How can we customize the site for different individuals?
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How easy is it to donate?
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Some of the major pain points we identified included:
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People wanted to be more involved but were unsure where to start
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Individuals wanted to have a variety of options in ways to help donate
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People wanted to validate that organizations were trustworthy and aligned with their values
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People wanted to be able to make a difference and know that their donations were being used for a good purpose
Current Site Analysis
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We looked at the current Food Runners’ website to determine their existing areas of focus and what could be improved to address both business and user needs. We found that overall the website was more catered to businesses and organizations, instead of individuals.
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So, it’s not surprising that we identified several issues that might discourage an individual from getting involved including:
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Unorganized and overwhelming amount of information on pages and sections about the issues CASA is trying to tackle
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Inappropriate call to action based on the sites purpose and who the target users are
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Page hierarchy and patterns are inconsistent through out the site
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Long blocks of text that leave frustration when trying to read through the text
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A lack of evidence showing the impact that CASA has made and the impact you can have as an individual
User Journey Map
In order to visualize the current CASA website experience from the user’s perspective we created a user journey map to illustrate the potential scenario where a user might interact with the CASA website, including finding information for victims like the warning signs of domestic abuse, getting involved with the organization, and making a donation.
Competitor Analysis
To gain information and identify best practices for our website redesign we conducted a competitor analysis. We began by looking at the websites of several other non-profit organizations including
Key Findings:
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To Write Love on Her Arms:
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Beautiful graphics, fonts, color palette, icons, organization
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Very well branded, multiple ways to seek help, encouraging voice and writing
Women in Distress:
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Provides a video on home page, tabs are organized, easy to find information
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Repetition in hotline number, information to help someone or even for a person to get information
DomesticShelters.org:
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Very organized, very easy to read, calm colors, great contrast, All important information easy to reach
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Videos and articles on how to recognize abuse, beautiful Icons, very well organized
National Domestic Violence Hotline:
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Repetitive color scheme, friendly fonts, big icons and buttons
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Easy to read, well organized, only takes a few clicks to get the information you need, exit button (safety button), hovering contact information
Go Fund Me:
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Unique crowdfunding program, news to support needs
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Can enter custom donation amount, sliding scale for tips, secure spending
Feature Prioritization
To solve the design challenge, we compiled a set of design needs. We brainstormed on ideas and clustered them into groups of similar themes. These features included:
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Colors based on color psychology that presented feelings of confidence and calmness withing the user
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Quick escape button to exit the website quickly and safely when in the presence of their abuser
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Utilizing the repetition effect by placing the domestic violence hotline number repeatedly, making the user more likely to reach out for help and making that information more significant
Information Architecture
The existing information architecture has problems with:
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convoluted user flows
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weak call to action
The proposed information architecture managed to highlight “warning signs of domestic violence”, “donate”, and “get involved” by:
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making their presence on the navigation bar more prevalent
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grouping similar categories together to cut down search time.
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highlight "Donate tab" to make it more apparent.
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congregating “donate”, “volunteer”, and “shelter needs” under the newly created “donate” category.
The existing information architecture has problems with:
-
convoluted user flows
-
weak call to action
The proposed information architecture managed to highlight “warning signs of domestic violence”, “donate”, and “get involved” by:
-
making their presence on the navigation bar more prevalent
-
grouping similar categories together to cut down search time.
-
highlight "Donate tab" to make it more apparent.
-
congregating “donate”, “volunteer”, and “shelter needs” under the newly created “donate” category.
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We had actual users organize the pages of the site in a way that seemed logical to them:​
Wireframe - Mockup
Once we organized all our research and defined our solution, we began to explore potential designs for the website. To start this process, we translate our thoughts into tangible ideas and better visualize our problem. This allowed us to quickly explore several concepts for the website layout as illustrated by the quick sketches below.
