Goals
- Build a website that highlights the nonprofit’s work, values, and impact in Central Austin.
- Explain the TNR program and the impact of volunteers.
- Encourage foster/adoption participation.
- Increase donations, volunteer sign-ups, and foster/adoption rates.
Results
Within 2 months post-launch, the organization achieved:
- Increased volunteer registrations.
- Increased donations through sticky and repeated CTAs.
- High user engagement with foster/adoptions sections, showing interest.
- Consistent branding and messaging, improving trust and brand identity.
- The nonprofit received lots of inquiries from people wanting to adopt or foster a cat.
The problem
The Cat TNR (Trap-Neuter-Return) organization had no website, making it difficult to drive donations, recruit volunteers, or promote adoption and fostering. They needed a digital presence to:
- Explain the TNR program and the impact of volunteers.
- Make it easy for people to donate or sign up to volunteer.
- Encourage foster/adoption participation.
Initial research & insights
Methods:
- Stakeholder interviews to understand organizational goals and pain points.
- Competitive analysis of other TNR and animal welfare websites.
- Informal qualitative user interviews with potential donors and volunteers.
Key insights:
- The organization's stakeholders have several goals. They want to increase engagement with the foster/adoption program, boost volunteer sign-ups, and communicate their value. While all of these goals were important, stakeholders emphasized that donations were the top priority to avoid ceasing operations due to lack of funds.
- Clear messaging about the TNR mission and its impact builds trust and motivates action.
- Multiple engagement options (donate, volunteer, foster/adopt) increase participation.
- Repeated and sticky CTAs improve conversions because they're more visible.
- Visual storytelling such as pictures of the cats, adopters, volunteers, and everyone involved with the organization creates an emotional connection that motivates users to participate.
Usability testing
Objective
To ensure the homepage and volunteer page clearly communicate the nonprofit’s mission, make key actions (donate, volunteer, foster/adopt) easy to find, and create an engaging experience for users.
Method:
- Moderated usability testing: Conducted 7 sessions with volunteers, potential donors, and fosters.
- Tasks included:
- Understand the TNR program and nonprofit mission.
- Find and complete a donation.
- Register as a volunteer.
- Explore foster/adoption options.
- Observation & metrics:
- Task success rate - 100%
- Error rate - 0%
- Time on task - For the donate and volunteer actions, the average time on task was 50 seconds
- Click-throughs to adoption/foster pages - All users engaged with the foster/adoption pages.
Key Findings:
- Users understood the TNR mission and the nonprofit's impact. Users provided positive feedback on the visual design.
- The sticky donate button was easy to locate, and all users were able to complete the donation form.
- Multiple CTAs for volunteering and donations successfully guided users to take action.
- Foster/adoption cards were engaging, and participants expressed interest in learning more or taking action.
Design Iterations:
- I refined UX copy for clarity on TNR processes.
- I updated the button padding to meet WCAG accessibility guidelines.
Outcome:
The usability testing validated that visitors could easily understand the nonprofit’s mission and complete key actions, providing confidence that the website effectively drives donations, volunteer sign-ups, and foster/adoption engagement.
Prototype
This is what we launched, and as a result, donations, volunteers, and foster/adoption engagement increased significantly. The nonprofit received lots of inquiries from people wanting to adopt or foster a cat.
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