The Ultimate Call-to-Action
Promoting environmental education, one school garden at a time
The little non-profit with a big impact
Eco-School Network is a micro non-profit located in Portland, Oregon. At the helm are two paid directors who manage a network of project leaders. These project leaders teach lessons of environmental literacy and instill more sustainable initiatives within the schools themselves. Their projects range from school gardens, waste reduction in cafeterias, and carpooling initiatives.
The Brief
Redesign ESN’s website in order to garner more interest from volunteers and donors.
Duration
Three-week sprint
Team & Role
Ashley Revales
Erin Hendershot
Jessica Boyd
Myself: UX Writer & Researcher
Tools
Figma
Miro
Optimal Workshop
Typeform
WordPress
Methods
Market research
User surveys
User interviews
Competitive analysis
Comparative analysis
Copy editing
Copywriting
Affinity mapping
Persona creation
Wireframing
Prototyping
Usability testing
The Problem
I’m just not feelin’ it.
Eco-School Network’s mission is to teach environmental literacy to young students who go on to become ecological stewards for life.
Maybe then we can find ourselves out of this capitalist hellscape that thrives upon squeezing every ounce of precious resources out of Mother Earth (but I digress. It’s fine, everything is fine 🙃)
However! Due to lack of organization, outdated site elements, and messages that lacked any calls-to-action on Eco-School Network’s website, users aren’t inspired to join the cause and fight the good fight.
The Solution
Strip it all away to get the audience hyped.
Get your mind out of the gutter, Eco-School Network works with kids!
By eliminating unnecessary site content to narrow the focus on Eco-School Network’s efforts, we can inspire participation and prospective members will come clamoring to support.
Solution Objectives
1. Remove content that obscures Eco-School Network’s work.
2. Highlight the impact of volunteers’ time and donors’ money.
3. Heavily feature ESN’s current initiatives.
4. Create copy that is compelling and inspires action.
Deliverables
Condensed, organized information
With the implementation of IA best practices and more concise copy, you don’t have to be an archaeologist to understand the lasting impact of Eco-School Network.
Inspiring messages
ESN is a great example of community leaders who are working to tackle the climate crisis. Bold messaging is the way to inspire others to fight the good fight.
A reason to give
When you see how, dollar-for-dollar, your donation can enrich the education of tomorrow’s leaders, the draw to give is stronger.
A staff page! Literally the only thing they asked of us!
ESN initially only asked my team to design a staff page. We committed to dedicating more time into a full site overhaul, for the sake of the user. We did, however, deliver what we were asked.
Look at that lovely bunch of folks ready to teach Oregon’s youth about the magic of recycling!
The Approach
A tuppence for a worthy cause?
We crafted a survey to discover what compels users to donate their hard-earned cash to causes.
We received responses from 32 users, and we gathered the following results:
25% of users said that they give monthly, and currently Eco-School Network’s platform does not facilitate monthly donations.
58% of users said that they donate to causes that they discovered via social media, and ESN does not have a strong presence on social media.
The top four categories that users say their causes fall under are:
Crisis (65.6%)
Children’s Education (46.9%)
Environmental and Animal (43.8%)
Youth (43.8%)
These causes are all perfectly in line with ESN’s efforts (because yes, the state of the environment is a crisis). Thus, we discovered that participants are more than willing to contribute financially to causes like ESN. It was now our job to figure out how to entice donors.
The Current Experience™
We recruited 3 educators to walk through the ESN’s current website. We began with a few questions about their relationship with sustainability, then asked them to freely click through the website for 5 minutes and express their initial thoughts.
All users agreed with Eco-School Network’s mission and intention. However, even after five minutes, users still were not 100% sure about the work that the organization does. Additionally, all agreed that the layout was confusing and overwhelming.
These tests confirmed my team’s speculation: anyone could get behind ESN, but the organization of the website was a roadblock.
Who is our user?
With this data, we engaged in a round of affinity mapping, which revealed the following attitudes:
1. Users want to know the direct impact of their time and money before they donate.
2. Non-profits that take an active role in their community are more compelling to donors.
3. Our users don’t want to read. They want the highlights without hunting for them.
My team, now familiar with our users’ motivations, frustrations, and goals. felt ready to create a persona of ESN’s average volunteer. Her name is Sustainable Susie, and she is absolutely lovely.
Meet our environmental warrior!
I see Google docs. They’re everywhere.
With enough research under our belts, I was ready to develop meaningful, effective copy for ESN’s audience. I would need to highlight the information prospective volunteers and donors would need to feel confident in ESN, while cutting superfluous content.
My main objective: increase the frequency of calls-to-action, to inspire, well… action.
Sketch, sketch, click, click, ET VOILA.
We created an MVP in Figma that reorganized the website’s content and a showcased a few key excerpts. We asked 4 participants, all of whom were educators or parents, to complete 3 tasks involving finding specific projects and information about donor impact.
All users agreed that our design was easy to use, well-organized, and streamlined. Three out of four rated the experience a 9/10 for efficiency, with the fourth user rating it a 7.5/10. It’s okay, User #4, no hard feelings.
In the glow of our usability test success, my team took a deep dive into WordPress, ESN’s chosen site builder, to bring our vision to life! But first, we had to mask up, in compliance with the CDC. Safety first.
Next Steps
Member Portal
Eco-School Network’s website has a password-protected section for members to share resources, stories, and other information. The portal is difficult to find and the page is disorganized. In our next sprint, we would redesign the member’s page to facilitate more efficient sharing of resources.
Social Media
Currently, ESN is only active on Facebook. 😱
I know, right? Though more of a job for a marketing volunteer, we believe that encouraging activity on Instagram or Twitter ties into our sprint goals. Social media is a vital way to broadcast bite-sized information that entices users. If we had more time, we would develop a social media plan for ESN.