Women for Women International

 For non-profit organizations that depend heavily on charitable donations — especially those whose work reaches across the globe — user experience and content strategy effectiveness become mission critical.  

In the case of Women for Women International (WfWI), a Washington, DC-based organization that provides practical and moral support to marginalized women survivors of war worldwide, our client was striving to improve user engagement across the board: Not only did they want to foster a better user understanding of the significance of their humanitarian work, but they also wanted to increase ongoing support from donations, newsletter sign-ups, and social media follows across a variety of audiences and age groups. While their existing Drupal site had been recently launched, the WfWI team felt it needed further improvements to help them achieve these goals.

After conducting a best practices review of the assets that comprised their existing online donation path, extensive user testing, and an in-depth discovery process with key stakeholders, we implemented a continuous improvement plan that addressed impactful changes to the site — as well as the creation of a complementary high-level messaging strategy that will contribute to long-term conversion optimization. Based on the results of a user pathways audit, we designed a Google Optimize A/B testing plan that the client can use at a future date — such as during a major capital campaign — when they need to explore how to get the best user engagement through different variations on donation language, placement of homepage donation calls to action, and messaging options on the donation page.

With a goal of increasing depth of engagement to help users learn more about the organization’s impact, we identified a new information architecture for the site and made recommendations for approach to navigation that addresses the needs of end users by providing consistency across devices with a clear hierarchy of content and encourages exploration.

The new homepage visual design we created now features a hero header with more prominent placement of their logo, impactful imagery, clear and immediate calls to action, and intuitive pathways to donation options. In addition, we implemented user-friendly at-a-glance infographics, easy-to-read program summaries, emotion-driven impact story teasers that immediately engage readers, and an overview of the ways to get and stay involved with WfWI and its mission. Going one step further, we designed and implemented a call to action for the blog and interior pages to provide content editors with an effective way to encourage users to take desired actions on the site, such as Donate, Learn More, Become a Sponsor, Follow on Social Media, and more. 

A secondary design phase involved updating a select group of interior pages to reflect the visual styling and components used on the new home page, and improving the breadcrumb navigation of the site to accommodate up to three pages to improve the way-finding experience for users. The next initiative will involve application of updated visual rebranding to the website.