Putting the supporter’s online experience first

Why Planning, Testing & Focusing on the User Experience Creates Great Nonprofit Websites

Online, if you put your customer’s needs

first, you will achieve your business goals as

well.

Being customer focused online means• Really knowing who your customers are

Did you know that your online audience may be different to your traditional audience?

• Understanding what your customers needs and expectations areWHY did they join/ visit your website, mobile app or Facebook page?

• Planning & building your online content to meet your customers needsMake it easy for your visitors to achieve their goal.

User experience (UX) is the way a person feels about using a product, system or service and

how easy it is to use.

User experience is subjective because it is measuring an individual’s feelings and

thoughts about the system.

User experience is dynamic, because technology and thus our human behaviour,

changes over time.

Why you should put your supporters first?

Why you should put the supporter first?• Because

• It will help you understand them better• they expect it and deserve it• it will make your organisation more profitable• it will ensure a superior online experience• it will differentiate you from your competitors & keep your

supporters loyal• they will drive actions & innovation• it will streamline business operations & the supply chain• it will promote transparency and accountability• you will be able to better predict and forecast• you can’t succeed without them

How to implement a good User Experience?Planning your digital strategy around giving your user the best possible user experience.

A good supporter experience is

• Giving the user options to support, donate, engage• Allow the user to choose how they want to support and make it

easy for them

• Creating multiple online touch-points• And each of those touch-points being consistent in their tone, look

& feel and functionality

• Providing expert information and guidance in your field • Be that sustainability, human rights or aged care

• Make the supporter feel good about their contribution• Help them share their thoughts, feelings and good deeds.

The elements of User Experience (UX)

User Experience Planning Workflow

Who is your audience?

How do they think and feel?

What information/ content do they want?

What are their expectations?

Look & feel to match

Touch

Who is your audience, really?

Website personas

Really know who your online audience is (not the stereotype) and what their thoughts and feelings are

Website personas

Website personas

Website personas

A useful process - audience personas

By going through the process of identifying your primary target audience and then understanding if they are in-fact the same people online (because they might be different), your organisation will learn how your supporters think, feel and behave online.

This puts you in a better position to provide a superior online experience as well as excellent supporter programs and services.

And you now have a documented target audience for your knowledge bank.

What are your visitor’s needs & expectations?

A supporter’s goal online is called a user scenario

Creating a user scenario from your website personas means that your organisation understands the general thought process and consideration cycle that a supporter will follow online.

User scenarios can be incredibly complex, or very simple. It depends on your audience and your product or service.

Map of user scenario - mobile

Map of a user scenario - web

Documenting user scenarios

Demonstrating user scenarios

How user scenarios help guide us

Your supporter user scenarios will help guide the website requirements, functionality spec & technology choices.

Once your audience user scenarios are mapped out in theory, you are able to then test & refine them in practice.

Documented user scenarios are incredibly important for bench-marketing our assumptions of user behaviour & how they change over time.

What are they looking for?

What do your supporters want to do online?

Your business determines their needs

Online users are finding your organisation through search or social media or because they know and trust your brand.

When they arrive on your website, mobile site or application or social networking profile, they already have an idea of what they want to do because they understand what your organisation is about.

Your job is to meet and exceed their expectations.

Content created to aid the user’s goalsYou can understand your audience and their needs better than any of your competitors, but if you don’t deliver the content, products or actions that they are looking for ….

Content that meets the user’s needs

UX, Content & website navigationContent needs to be user focused & it should be in a format that works online.

A website’s content should not assume too much knowledge of the user and it should not be structured, based on internal organisational structure.

e.g. A user’s expectations of online content People behave differently online than offline.

Digital is about research, engagement & transaction.

•Shorter sentences, less formal language, shorter copy in general•Keyword rich content for search engines – say exactly what you mean, no puns or metaphors•Engagement objects like games, video, infographics, polls & images help tell the story at a glance•Real time transactions & automated responses – users expect their receipt immediately.

How easy it is for your supporters to

find what they’re looking for/ do what they came to do?

Usability makes the world work better

Usability – how easy is it to use?

• It should just make sense

• The user’s goals should be quick& easy to achieve

• The design & user experience must match the channel & device

• It is more important for your website, mobile site/ application orsocial media profile to be user-friendly, than beautiful.

What kind of things do your supporters want to do online?

When a supporter visits your brand online, they have a goal in mind.

Some supporter goals might be• Sign a petition• Make an enquiry

• Find information• Make a donation• Use a calculator

• Watch a video• Subscribe to a newsletter• Buy a goat

A well designed site will make it quick & easy for the user to complete their task.

Does your website meet the supporter’s needs?

Is the design and functionality intuitive?

User experience design

A User Experience Architect takes the website personas & user scenarios developed and combines this your organisation’s product & service and their knowledge of how users behave online to design a website that;

•Can predict the user journey and workflow

•Is intuitive and easy of use

•Is accessible to all people

•Maximises the technology

•Compliments the content

•And doesn’t hinder the aesthetic design.

The online user journey predicts the supporter’s needs

Integrating the user needs with the backend functionality & design

A user experience website designer will make sure they fully understand the audience and the website functionality requirements before they start to think about design.

Wire-framing marries the user’s needs with functionality

A wire-frame is a user experience website or mobile design layout.

A wire-frame maps out both the user behaviour and website functionality, so as to ensure the user’s needs are met before the website look and feel (design) is applied.

User experience wire-frames

Wire-frames are the practical interpretation of your organisations mission aligned to the website personas, user scenarios and functionality.

Wire-frames provide an excellent tool to reflect against when your website has been designed and then built. Your wire-frames form the blueprint of your website.

Wire-frames are not always literally translated into design and then built. Like all things, sometimes functionality planned in theory doesn’t work in practice. However, they still act as an excellent guide.

Now you have to put theory into practice and bring it to life.

From wireframe to design mockup

From design to prototype or html buildIn an ideal situation

Build prototype test w/ audience amend & refine Build website.

But if the time and budget is not available for this, your planning will now be put into practice and your website will be built from the wire-frames.

Now we must test to make sure it works

Once your website is finished, you must test your theory in the real world.

Typically usability testing would:

• Recruit test subjects to match website personas

• Test subjects follow user scenarios and complete tasks to determine if website behaves as expected

• Any usability issues can be amended before going live

• The usability tests create a bench-mark for the future.

What is usability testing?

Remember, usability tests measure how easy is it for your audience to achieve their intended goal.

Usability looks at 3 primary areas of a website:

1.Accessibility1. Page load times

2. Colour contrast, font size

3. Optimised for disabilities & screen readers

2.Functionality1. How intuitive is the process

2. Does the website behave as expected

3.Navigation & Content1. Clear & concise labels

2. Adequate linking

3. SEO – how easily users can find you

4. Design

Usability is not as successful if it is an after thought.

When planning your website, put the donor first.

Your website is now live and operational and your supporters are happy.

But has anything changed over time?

Usability testing lets you know if your supporters are having a good online user experience.

Usability testing & bench-marketingBecause user experience (UX) is about how people think, feel and behave with online products and services – naturally these things can change over time, as technology, the marketplace and our expectations shift.

Regular (annual) usability testing should be undertaken to ensure that your website continues to meet your user’s needs.

It is not unheard of to see a carefully UX planned website fail to meet their use’s needs soon after launch, because the customer has not been kept top of mind during business as usual operations.

If you’re thinking about a new website or online touch-point, Usability testing is a great place to start, .

Usability testing - tasks

Usability testing - results

Usability bench-marketing

Forrester’s is the world’s leading authority on website user experience and usability testing.

There are of course other agencies and suppliers who specialise in user experience planning and offer usability testing also.

Recap.

Why put the customer first and

How to plan your digital strategy around the best possible user experience

Online, if you put your customer’s needs

first, you will achieve your business goals as

well.

Why you should put the customer first• Because

• It will help you understand them better• they expect it and deserve it• it will make your organisation more profitable• it will ensure a superior online experience• it will differentiate you from your competitors & keep your

supporters loyal• they will drive actions & innovation• it will streamline business operations & the supply chain• it will promote transparency and accountability• you will be able to better predict and forecast• you can’t succeed without them

How - User Experience Workflow

Who is your audience?

How do they think and feel?

What information/ content do they want?

What are their expectations?

Look & feel to match

Touch

Any Questions?

Remember, Parachute Digital is here to guide you through the digital landscape.