Elizabeth at Healthy Communities of the Capital Area knew first hand that her organization’s website struggled to convey what the org was all about. She remembered how, on her first visit when applying for the job, she wondered what it is exactly that they did. Elizabeth brought me on to perform a website audit “to make it more user-friendly,” help the community access their resources, and potentially encourage people to donate.
• They can’t afford an overall redesign, so we will need to stick with their old Wordpress theme.
• Their whole IT department consists of one person who is paid by their parent organization, who “only does exactly what you tell him to do.”
• They have no staff resources to devote to fleshing out the content.
• Went page by page through the content
• Recorded first impressions
• Brainstormed recommendations
• Met with stakeholders to discuss information architecture and content strategy.
• Prototyped a new home page in Figma.
• Presented to the executive director and other stakeholders.
• Currently waiting to talk to their parent organization’s IT department to get some changes implemented.
• Show what HCCA offers to the community with a reimagined home page.
• Keep it familiar—use their current color scheme, logo, and images to keep the time-investment low.
• Provide a list of specific pages with details of what needs to change on each one.
Imagining the experience of a brand new visitor was not a stretch, since I was one. Their current home page included a very high-level explanation of their work next to a photo of the front of their building. But what do they really DO, I wondered. The call to action (“get involved”) leads only to a contact form.
The About page offered more high-level statements. But where could I go to find their programs?
Under initiatives I found a list of programs with other programs nested under some. But what did the program titles refer to?
When I clicked into a program to see what it was all about, I found some basic information, more mission statements, but then I was faced with contact information to “learn more” about the program. What exactly are the people they are serving supposed to find on the website?
Based on the client’s initial statement, I planned to focus on information architecture: how easily can their clients find relevant information. In addition, I offered help with:
• Accessibility: very basic stuff, which was all I knew
• Microcopy: their page titles made more sense internally
• Content strategy: much of their language made more sense to the internal stakeholders rather than the community they serve
• Went page by page through the content
• Recorded first impressions
• Brainstormed recommendations
I created a Keynote presentations filled with screenshots of their current site to illustrate my explanations. I covered:
• Basic accessibility principles
• My interactions with the content, to help them see their site through the eyes of a first-time visitor.
• Images of their site from a phone, showing how the image of a flyer or PDF is unreadable on a smaller screen.
At first the spreadsheet was a tool to keep track of each page of the site and my thoughts. Sharing it seemed a questionable choice. Towards the end of the project, when I had refined my recommendations further, I chose to share it with Elizabeth and her colleagues so that it could serve as a checklist and a guide for them as they looked through the site to ultimately decide which changes to implement.
I wanted to keep as much as I could the same, so that they wouldn’t feel overwhelmed about the changes, or be unable to implement them because of resource constraints.
• I eliminated the CTA button, since it only pointed visitors to the contact form, literally bypassing the entire point of having a website.
• I brought the initiatives to the forefront, so that people could understand the org’s purpose in context.
My initial design kept intact the original:
• Color scheme
• Anchor link styles
• Program images, where possible
• Anything I imagined to be part of the Wordpress theme
“Could not have asked for a more thorough, in-depth and helpful audit of our website! Megan gave us actionable advice for each page of our site to help us think through usability by the public — just what we needed! Great to work with and knowledgeable!” -Elizabeth, HCCA
I made some small but impactful changes to the design:
• Higher contrast text that meets WCAG AA standards
• Obvious and descriptive links
• Clear, color-independent indicator of location
Advocating for change at a large organization takes time and patience. I am in touch with HCCA and still hope to work with their IT person to make some improvements to the site. What those improvements will be by the time this happens will depend. I’m iterating on them as I learn, and I’m learning more all the time.
