Nonprofits and not-for-profits provide vital services to communities locally and nationally. What they manage to accomplish, often on shoestring budgets, is quite phenomenal. While they do their best to incorporate new technologies, they rarely ever have a dedicated team of wed designers, developers and marketers. Groove has had the pleasure of working with some nonprofit organizations–Big Brothers Big Sisters Maryland, The Jonathan Ogden Foundation, and others—on online mini-projects, promoting special events or raising donations. Unfortunately, there are too many nonprofits to help them all; so, I thought I’d turn my Design 1, 2, 3 into the nonprofit sector this month.
Below is the homepage for an autism education and support organization right here in Maryland. (NOTE: The logo has been removed for the purpose of making the critique more objective.)
And below are my 1, 2, 3 call outs.
- Clutter. I quite like the three little people logo that they incorporate as part of their brand/identity. But I do not like how they have managed to throw these guys onto every piece of the website (see the red circles.) It’s as if their website is a waiter’s vest at TGIF. Hello, flair! Unfortunately, the website with the most flair does not win. In fact, they’ll lose in usability and design. My suggestions? Bring it in a notch. I think the little people next to the left side navigation is a fantastic way to integrate the brand into the site. But the people on the “Autism Society Chapters” or “Sign-up for e-newsletter” are purely decorative. Sure, they might be calling attention to various calls to actions, but because there are so many of people in so many places, there’s no visual direction. My eyes bounce from one to the next and as a result, I never stop long enough to take an action.
- User Confusion. My guess is that those boxes are for an account log-in, the left box is for the user name or e-mail and the second box is for the password. The important part of that sentence is “my guess.” I shouldn’t have to guess, I should be told what those boxes are. When working within the online medium, it’s easy to forget that website visitors aren’t always tech-saavy. We shouldn’t expect them to know what something is/what to do with something, and we shouldn’t make them think to figure it out. This has a rather quick solution, place the words Username and Password within their respective fields. When a user clicks in the box, the place holder text will disappear.
I’d also consider positioning it elsewhere on the page. It’s smack in the center and has bright white entry fields on a solid blue bar. A lot of attention is being drawn to it and that may be a bad thing. It’s taking much of the focus off the top navigation, which includes the donate link, so nothing should be taking away from that. The typical position for account log-in is the upper right hand corner of the page. It might not be as prominent, but it’s the standard location for it, and so visitors will still be able to find it.
- Layout. The current homepage has a 3-column layout. With all the call outs on the left and right side of the page, the primary content is being overwhelmed. How can visitors really gain any of the information being provided if they’re constantly being pulled into the side bars. My suggestion would be to condense the two sidebars and change the layout to one navigation column on the left and one large content column. Figure out what needs to stay and what can be used as call outs on interior pages. Or consider using some type of flash/jQuery trick where the side bar call out rotates.
It’s unfortunate, that for all the good work nonprofits and not-for-profits do that they’re not rolling in the green. But because this is common knowledge they have the benefit of being able to find agencies that are willing to partner with them for a low cost or for pro-bono work. My suggestion to nonprofit agencies is to look for community partners to help you work on your online materials. The importance of a professional website is essential when asking for donations, providing a service and building/enhancing a reputation.
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Homepage :: Autism Society
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