The Good News
The problem
The world has become a worse place to live than even just a few year ago. Many people need urgent help. The NGOs and charity foundations try to provide this help, gathering donations and recruiting volunteers.
What prevents people from donating to NGOs and charity foundations? I tried to do some research and seek for the existing ones to make a design concept of a charity foundations aggregator.
Secondary research
Before starting with the user interviews, I tried to look for some secondary research. The most valuable sources for me were these three:
Non-Profit Organization Websites: Increasing Donations and Volunteering
Donation Usability: Increasing Online Giving to Non-Profits and Charities
Что изменилось в российской благотворительности за последние 5 лет
Major takeaways
- The people prefer to donate to those who they know;
- People get annoyed when they see NGO ads too frequently;
- The foundations need to be more transparent and present the financial reports as well as the successful cases;
- Regional charity foundations are the most supported even though they do not have access to tv ads;
- 1/3 of respondents care about where their money went and what happened next.
User interviews
I interviewed 5 participants from Russia and Armenia, and all had donated something to the NGOs at least once. In addition, one of the respondents was running a charity initiative herself.
Here you can see the affinity map with the research results (Russian)
Interview takeaways:
- 4 out of 5 participants knew about the NGO they donated to from their friends or colleagues
- Auto payment is a frequently used feature (2/5 participants). One participant said she had to cancel her auto payment because of the political risks;
- All participants either prefer to donate anonymously or do not care;
- Some respondents said they unsubscribed from the charity foundations' news feed when they faced too many calls to help they could not answer, and that made them feel depressed and disturbed.
- 2 out of 5 participants said they were frustrated when only fixed sum donations were allowed. One participant also said she prefers to donate things instead.
"I wouldn’t say I like it when the NGO ads are trying to convince you that you are a terrible person because you could not help them right now"
— Sergey, PR manager, Yerevan
“People usually come from Instagram or their friends’ recommendations. I tried TV ads too, but they were not effective.”
— Alyona. Organised charity marathons in Moscow region
“I want to decide what amount of money I am ready to donate, or help in some other ways, if possible”
— Maria, designer, Yerevan
Idea:
Promote NGOs by showing not problems but positive cases. A specialized media concentrated on the happy ending stories in your city, in which you may also participate.Paper wireframes
Paper wireframes on the news feed page
An option for the main page with the focus on one happy case and the urgent topics
A layout of the main page woth more emphasis on news and events
Another main page layout with one fundraising topic and the corresponding news at the bottom
Usability test
I interviewed five people from Armenia and Russia. The affinity diagram, where I analyzed the test results.
Usability test results:
- the website's purpose is clearly understood (“something like a volunteer community”);
- 3 out of 5 people would like to read such kind of news from time to time, especially about their home town;
- Other results you may find in the images below.
The events turned out to be more important than I previously thought. Donation progress bar were not visible enough
Generic "hamburger" mobile navigation is not as effective as simple tabs
Metrics do not give any additional trust in NGOs, because is is not clear who and how measures them. Real cases and reviews work better
