Pro Bono UX Volunteering for Rowan Alba
I will be doing some volunteering work for the charity Rowan Alba in early May 2019 (May 10th and 13th). The charity helps homeless people and alcoholics in and around Edinburgh. They recently launched a new website in the late fall: http://rowanalba.org.
Unfortunately, said website was rushed and a lot was compromised in order to get it live. As far as I'm aware they hired a freelancer to run the project and are no longer able to receive ongoing support to resolve critical issues on the site. As I volunteer with the charity already as part of CARDS (Community Alcohol Related Damage Service), I offered to help out with improving the UX of their website as part of the 2 days volunteering Whitespace offers. A colleague generously offered 2 days as well to help with the development.
Background
In Celtic mythology, the Rowan tree was known as the Travellers’ Tree, because it prevented people on a journey from getting lost. Rowan Alba began with Thorntree Street 12 years ago providing secure tenancies to older people who have had a history of homelessness and a long term history of problematic alcohol use.
Ewan Law, Training and Learning Coordinator
Kick-off
Before any work can take place on the website, we met with a representative of Rowan Alba to discuss their current pain points with the website and what they wish to achieve.
We discussed and highlighted the main purposes of the website:
Donations
Sales/Promotion of Learning Centre products
Promotion of the organisation, and its events
Promotion/Attracting of CSR support/business
Recruitment of Volunteers/Volunteer information
Identifying key actions
Having looked at the website, and discussed with the representative what its main functions are/should be, we made the following suggestions.
SSL Enforcement is necessary. As the website is currently, it is not secure, and individuals are warned of this when visiting the page, which puts users off visiting.
Accessibility assessment is required on the site. We identified the font colours and contrast as being a 'readability issue'
The link for the Twitter feed is broken, and therefore does not display properly
There were multiple Social Media 'quick click links', that these were unnecessary, confusing, and looked 'cluttered'
Identified that a lot of the Key content was 'buried'. Pages were difficult to find within the website, and even when previously accessed, it was a challenge to find them again. This is a major issue in regards the Website achieving its main purposes
An 'Information Architecture' review should be carried out
Total restructure of pages should be carried out
News and Events should be combined
News/Events were out of date - suggestion that News and Events should be linked to Social Media, to avoid duplication of work by Rowan Alba staff in updating numerous different platforms, and to avoid having out of date News and Events
Overall the website is not user friendly for 'Front End Users'
The website is not user friendly for 'Back End' purposes (maintenance by Rowan Alba staff)
User Testing
In order to validate our assumptions of the highlighted issues and gain user insights, I will be conducting user testing pre website development. This user testing will also inform how we prioritise the issues, especially due to the tight time constraints. I will also be conducting another session of user testing post website development to assess if we have been successful in achieving our key goals.
As such, I have developed task based scenarios for each of the 5 user groups:
Volunteer
In need of help
Staff
Potential purchaser of training
Donor
Next steps
Conduct User Testing
Recruit a minimum of 5 test users. They should preferably unfamiliar with the Rowan Alba website.
Information Architecture Review
Accessibility Assessment
Ideation
Creative/Branding
Sketching
Prototype
Implement
Provide CMS training for staff
Review
Monitor statistics
Run another user testing workshop
Follow-up with Rowan Alba staff