On the current website, users struggle to find information they need. Potential members visiting the site have trouble understanding the specific purpose of California Preservation Foundation (CPF), or how to become involved.Therefore, our team improved the system architecture and graphic layout of key pages in the user's journey to volunteer or donate to CPF.
As a UX Designer with ties to this non-profit I led and coordinated stakeholder engagement from initial interviewing to final project hand-off. I also managed survey writing and data analysis, assisted with website production and component development on Figma.
Outgoing young professionals who value preserving history struggle to quickly understand the purpose and impact of the California Preservation Foundation and how they can contribute, due to a distracting amount of content and poor site navigation.
The Impact
What is the California Preservation Foundation?
The California Preservation Foundation provides statewide leadership, advocacy, and education to ensure the protection of California’s diverse cultural heritage and historic places both architectural and naturally occurring. Their core programs include webinars, an annual conference with workshops and speakers, and a statewide set of historic site tours.
Stakeholder Interview
As a current Education Committee member of CPF, I led the interview with its three staff members Cindy, Jon, and Lisa. Our team did a walkthrough of site areas that CPF staff were concerned with. From there, we inquired about their vision for the new site and goals for the future.
Stakeholder Goals
User Research Question
Do young professionals have an interest and availability to volunteer with an architectural preservation nonprofit?
Quantitative Research
Aligning with the stakeholders' goal to increase membership, we distributed a survey to mostly young professionals in our networks to discover the constraints around involvement with nonprofits and motivations regarding historic preservation. The survey garnered a total of 24 responses. Question types included multiple choice, short answer, yes/no, and scale rating.
Broadening Target Demographic to Grow Membership
Current Target
New Target
User Goals
Drop-down navigation menu
Membership tier breakdown
Email sign-up
Set donation options
Takeaways
Navigation bar dropdown fills the entire page width which makes navigation easy
Visually breaking down membership types in card format eases decision making
Locating newsletter sign up at bottom of page is common practice
Providing options for donation amount reduces friction when users are making a choice
Our team crafted lo-fi desktop and mobile prototypes prioritizing the communication of CPF’s mission and core events, while introducing a reorganized system architecture and navigation bar to direct users to donate or become involved more easily than before.
Six of our team members administered live one-on-one usability tests of our lo-fi prototype over Zoom. Later, we card-sorted the responses and found the trends to be site navigation, verbiage and brevity of descriptions, and page design in terms of proportions and ability to skim without scrolling too much.
What We Learned
The primary action of a page needs to be at the top.
There is confusion with the difference between email list, newsletter, and membership.
Pages are too long and graphic elements are too large.
User Tasks
Logo Redesign
Existing
New
Design Changes Implemented by CPF
Donation form
Membership page
In an ideal world…
I would push harder on stakeholders to involve our team in the implementation process. California Preservation Foundation was apprehensive to do a full redesign and only adopted several elements of our design at first. They are currently working with another designer to implement the full website by the end of 2024.
I should have confidently presented a projected timeline including a breakdown of design phases and cost associated with them. Offering to collaborate on a refined CMS might have persuaded them as well.
