website strategy planning for nonprofits
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TRANSCRIPT
Presented by Barbara PritchardCoordinated by Alex Green
Website Strategy Planning for Nonprofits
501 Commons HandsOn Tech brown bag Website Strategy
About HandsOn Tech
HandsOn Tech is a national AmeriCorps program funded in partnership with:
• Google• Points of Light Foundation• The Corporation of National
Community service
About 501 Commons
One Stop Shop for Nonprofits
• Technology Services• Financial Services• Human Resources Services• Management Consulting
Services
For more info:501 Commons.org
Presented by Barbara PritchardCoordinated by Alex Green
Website Strategy Planning for Nonprofits
501 Commons HandsOn Tech brown bag Website Strategy
Did you know?
Online giving grew 10.7% in 2012 compared to 2011 • Large nonprofits up 7.2% • Medium sized nonprofits up 14.3%• Small nonprofits up 11.8%
Source: Blackbaud 2012 Charitable Giving Report
Source: Dunham+Company, Direct Mail Study
501 Commons HandsOn Tech brown bag Website Strategy
But where to start?
Always remember….
You are not designing for yourself.
Strategies to help develop your digital plan:
• Stakeholder & User Interviews• Personas• Heuristic Analysis• User Experience Design
501 Commons HandsOn Tech brown bag Website Strategy
Information Architecture
IA is a….
“On the internet, information architecture means how a
website's content is organized and presented to
its users to facilitate navigation and search functions.”
Source: BusinessDictionary.com
501 Commons HandsOn Tech brown bag Website Strategy
Stakeholder Interviews
A stakeholder is anybody who is part of an organization and can affect or is affected by its web content, branding and/or the information provided through the organization’s digital offerings.
501 Commons HandsOn Tech brown bag Website Strategy
Stakeholder Interviews
1. Identify primary the stakeholders. Examples: Executive Director, Board Members, Fundraisers, Accounting, Content Mangers, Marketing Managers, Volunteer Coordinators.
2. Prep your questionsExamples: • From your perspective, what are some of the critical audiences for the website?• What are the most important things people can do, or actions they can take on the
website? • How can the website support our organizations mission?• How do you personally use the website?• What role do you think does the website play in the organization’s business
strategy? • What kind of information, features or functionality needs to be there that isn’t now? • What new initiatives do you have planned for the next 1-3 years? • Who would you consider competitors of the organization?
3. Listen & Take notesYour opinion matters, but should not during these interviews. Verbalize your understanding (“If I understood you…”), Use neutral phrases to encourage the interviewee (“I see”), Listen actively for meaning and emotion as well as for the facts.
501 Commons HandsOn Tech brown bag Website Strategy
User Interviews & Usability testing
Get to know the End Users of your organizations digital offerings – the people that visit your site. Who are they, and what do they need from your website?
Examples: Beneficiaries, Donors, Volunteers.
501 Commons HandsOn Tech brown bag Website Strategy
User Interviews & Usability testing
1. Surveys – Find out what’s most important to your usersRule of thumb – Keep it simple, write questions at 7th grade reading level. Examples using a 5 point scale:• How often do you <topic>?…Never, Rarely, Occasionally, Frequently, Often• How important is <topic>?...Not at all, A little, Somewhat, Very much, Extremely. • How much do you agree or disagree with <statement>? Strongly disagree,
Disagree, Neutral, Agree, Strongly Agree.Examples of open ended questions: • What is the purpose of your visit to our website? • Were you able to complete your task today? • If you were not able to complete the task, please explain why.
2. User TestingDefine a specific task or tasks and ask the user to walk you through achieving the task. Do not lead the test subject. • Were they able to achieve the task?• How long did it take them? • Were there points of frustration?• Did you uncover what the user was expecting to happen?
501 Commons HandsOn Tech brown bag Website Strategy
Personas
User Experience definition of Personas:
“Personas are fictional characters created to represent the different user types within a targeted
demographic, attitude and/or behavior set that might use a site, brand or product in a similar way.”Source: Wikipedia, Persona (User Experience)
501 Commons HandsOn Tech brown bag Website Strategy
Persona Examples
ProfileGenderAgeOccupation
CharacterDescriptionSite UsageWeb Confidence & ContextBrand Association Environmental Attitude
Source: Boagworld, “An experience with User Personas”
501 Commons HandsOn Tech brown bag Website Strategy
Persona Examples
AgeLocationSalaryOnline ActiviesOffline ActivitiesBioTechnical ComfortSocial Comfort (online)Mobile UsageKey entre trigger putsMotivation to use client, brand or projectGoalsBrands
Source: Dylaunx.com, “Corporate site redesign, A process Case Study”
501 Commons HandsOn Tech brown bag Website Strategy
Persona Examples
Source: Advertising Communication Technology, “Target”
501 Commons HandsOn Tech brown bag Website Strategy
Personas
As you map out your site keep asking questions….
Examples:
• Does feature X benefit a persona?
• What do I need to explain to support this persona?
• What sort of language should I use to make sure this persona understands the message?
• What tone should be used to communicate to this persona?
• Will this persona be able to achieve their goal quickly and easily?
• Does my homepage speak to each persona? Can they get to where they need to go easily?
501 Commons HandsOn Tech brown bag Website Strategy
Heuristic Evaluation
“Heuristic evaluation (Nielsen and Molich, 1990; Nielsen 1994) is a usability engineering method for finding the usability problems in a user interface design so that they can be attended to as part of an iterative design process.”
Source: Nielsen Norman Group, “How to conduct a Heuristic Evaluation”
Can be performed on…
• Your existing website.
• Competitor websites
• Wireframes &/or Prototypes
501 Commons HandsOn Tech brown bag Website Strategy
Heuristic Evaluation
First, define use cases (ideally of personas)
Examples:
• Joe is researching volunteer opportunities and found our website via a Google Search. He doesn’t know anything about us yet, and is trying to determine if we’re a fit.
• Betty, a potential client, heard about our services and is seeking our support. She’s heard good things, but hasn’t reached out for help before.
• Jane is deciding on her holiday contributions. She’s donated to us annually, and is familiar with our mission. She’s also been considering setting up monthly automatic donations, but hasn’t done that before.
501 Commons HandsOn Tech brown bag Website Strategy
Heuristic Evaluation
501 Commons HandsOn Tech brown bag Website Strategy
Heuristic Evaluation
501 Commons HandsOn Tech brown bag Website Strategy
Heuristic Evaluation
501 Commons HandsOn Tech brown bag Website Strategy
Additional IA Terminology
User Experience Design includes:
• Content Analysis – What content do you have? What do you need? Start with an inventory. This is usually done in Excel or some sort of Matrix.
• Site Mapping – Defining pages, subpages, and overall hierarchy of content.
• User Interaction flows – The movement of your user trough a task. For example, what steps need to be taken to send a donation, sign up to volunteer, login to the site….
• Wireframes – Defining the content to include per page and the overall structure of the individual pages.
• Functional Specification – Annotating the wireframe to explain user interaction (rollover states, where things should link to, how things should function) as well as defining system requirements (what browsers it must work on, what framework should it be build in, etc).
501 Commons HandsOn Tech brown bag Website Strategy
Q & A
Thank You!
Barbara [email protected]
Alex [email protected]
501 Commons HandsOn Tech brown bag Website Strategy
Resources
We can help you further!
• For info on:o Future workshops on technological applications,
social media methods, and other topicso Participating in a free tech assessment of your
nonprofit
• Contact us: [email protected]