Sundara Case Study

1. 1
Sundara

2. CHALLENGE
Sundara is a nonprofit that funds
hygiene solutions in developing
countries. The founder came to us
with a request for a site redesign.
Through testing, we discovered that
users were not getting the information
they were looking for.
SCOPE
Based on business goals and all
stakeholder needs, we narrowed the
scope of the project to updating the
information architecture, identifying
users, and content strategy.
MY ROLE
PROCESS
Site Audit
Research
IA/Content Strategy
Design
a nonprofit site redesign
focused on identifying users,
information architecture, and
content strategy
TOOLS
Sketch
Axure
INFORMATION ARCHITECT
I primarily contributed in
conducting research, creating
content strategy, revising
information architecture, creating
wireframes, and creating materials
for the client.
Sundara was a client project that I worked on in a team
of 4 over the course of 2.5 weeks.
OVERVIEW SITE AUDIT RESEARCH IA/CONTENT DESIGN
Sundara

3. • Evidence of Credibility
• Visual vs. Text-Heavy
• Impact of Organization
• Mission-Driven
• Human Interest Stories
USER GOALS
BRAND GOALS
BUSINESS GOALS
• Education/awareness
• Approachability
• Bottom Up Approach
• Newsletter sign-ups
• Consistent Funding
• Individual Donations
We considered the goals of all stakeholders when
planning our redesign.
Utilizing powerful, visually-driven storytelling
Engaging and educating the public on hygiene issues
Providing clear, compelling content for potential sponsors
This informed our objectives in how we were going to
restructure the information architecture of the site. We sought a
happy medium among all stakeholder goals and business needs.
OVERVIEW SITE AUDIT RESEARCH IA/CONTENT DESIGN

4. The mission statement is unclear to users
Too much text and not enough visuals
Purpose of the site and what user can accomplish is unclear
“I don’t understand how soap relates. Is
soap a tool or is this about soap?”
“I still don’t know who they are or
where I’m donating to.”
“I would like to know more about Sundara
without clicking so much.”
We also performed a heuristic evaluation based on these heuristics:
Findable, Accessible, Clear, Communicative, Visible, Controllable,
Credible, Delightful, Learnable, Useful.
KEY TAKEAWAYS
We conducted usability testing on the current site, asking users to identify
the purpose of the site. Users knew it was a nonprofit, but were generally
confused, unable to identify the mission statement of the organization.
usability testing | heuristic evaluation | competitive analysis
OVERVIEW SITE AUDIT RESEARCH IA/CONTENT DESIGN

5. charity: water clean the world pencils of promise
usability testing | heuristic evaluation | competitive analysis
We examined the sites of direct and indirect competitors for
inspiration and to see what is currently succeeding in the
nonprofit sector.
I additionally created site maps of competitor sites in order to
audit content and understand how successful nonprofits present
information to their users.
OVERVIEW SITE AUDIT RESEARCH IA/CONTENT DESIGN

6. We used affinity diagramming to determine what
content was most important to users on a non-profit site.
80%
News Feed
CONTENT RATED
VERY IMPORTANT
Clear, mission-driven business plan
Evidence of credibility (legitimate partners, press)
Impact of donations & organization
Human interest stories about individuals
More photos and videos throughout
KEY TAKEAWAYS
survey | user interviews | personas
We surveyed 25 people and interviewed 13 people who were
previously involved in the nonprofit sector to better understand
Sundara’s target user base.
48%
Interest in Issue
WHY PEOPLE VISIT
NONPROFIT SITES
38%
Internet Search
HOW PEOPLE FIND
NONPROFIT SITES
OVERVIEW SITE AUDIT RESEARCH IA/CONTENT DESIGN

7. LAURIE
“The Millennial Activist”
EDGAR
“The Consistent Donor”
COURTNEY
“The Knowledge Seeker”
ASHWINI
“The Screener”
We synthesized all our user research into 4 personas.
survey | user interviews | personas
Our primary persona was Ashwini, whose job consists of scouring websites
to find nonprofits to recommend to her boss for corporate sponsorship. This
was based off the stakeholder need for consistent funding.
OVERVIEW SITE AUDIT RESEARCH IA/CONTENT DESIGN

8. I created user journeys and use cases for all of the personas to help
understand what pages would be important for us to build out and what
type of content Sundara’s users would be looking for, with an emphasis
on Ashwini’s user journey.
user journeys | content prioritization | site maps | user testing
10 open card sorts
MSCW Method
4 closed card sorts
We prioritized site content with the MSCW method based on
user research and stakeholder goals, then card sorted the results.
OVERVIEW SITE AUDIT RESEARCH IA/CONTENT DESIGN

9. user journeys | content prioritization | site maps | user testing
I synthesized the results of the card sorting into an updated site
map. The navigation was further validated through multivariate
testing.
BEFORE AFTER
The intention with the updated site map was to maintain the
simplicity of navigation, while also including necessary content
that was currently missing.
OVERVIEW SITE AUDIT RESEARCH IA/CONTENT DESIGN

10. I collaborated with the project manager on content strategy and
created lo fi wireframes for each page, which we validated
through user testing.
http://dz5wna.axshare.com/home.html
lo fi wireframes | prototypes
http://bit.ly/1zwEEbZ
We additionally created high fidelity interactive prototype for
two pages in order to demonstrate the responsive layout and
visual design.
OVERVIEW SITE AUDIT RESEARCH IA/CONTENT DESIGN

11. 11
thank you