Usability

Reach Out and Charge Someone

Remember the movie Back to the Future II, where Marty McFly travels to the future in a flying Delorean? My eleven-year-old self was convinced that we would all be flying in cars and eating re-hydrated pizza by the year 2015. Well, we’re creeping up there, and can you believe it - nary a hoverboard in sight! No, I think Writer/Director Robert Zemeckis missed the mark just a tad, but I have to admit I never would have guessed our true direction either… I would never have believed that in my pocket, I could carry a device that lets me call my mom, send a text message, check my e-mail, listen to music, play games, watch movies, take pictures, manage my finances, read a book, map a route to anywhere in the world, and search for information on just about any topic I could imagine.  That’s pretty rad.  

And it’s just the tip of the iceberg.  

Lately, more and more of my conversations with nonprofit fundraisers have turned to mobile technologies and how nonprofits should be leveraging mobile to further their missions.  As we all know, text-to-give has proven successful(ish), especially around disaster relief like last year’s Haiti earthquake. (Read 5 Ways to Promote Your Text-to-Give Campaign on Social Media from Nonprofit Tech 2.0). Mobile applications have also begun to surface to empower peer-to-peer fundraisers to check their progress and send appeals straight from their phone.  Plus every organization wants to be sure their website is mobile-friendly and easy to navigate on a screen the size of your palm.  So where is all of this going?  What’s the next big mobile trend to consider?

If Starbucks is any indication, we should turn our attention to mobile payment technologies. Did you know that you can download an app that will allow you to pay for your coffee with a quick scan of your smart phone?  Take that, Marty McFly!  This technology relies on a mobile bar code, or QR code, that debits money from a pre-paid gift card you purchase ahead of time.  That seems to work for Starbucks, but not many nonprofits have brick-and-mortars with gift cards and check-out stands at the ready.  No, where I see the biggest opportunity for nonprofit orgs and mobile is with Near-field Communication, or NFC, technology.  NFC is a chip installed in or stuck on your phone that allows you make a credit card payment and/or gain access to information from a “smart object” with a tap of the phone (think of Exxon’s “Speedpass,” but installed in your phone and accepted anywhere).

So let’s brainstorm – how could you leverage a “tap-to-pay” or even a “tap to get more information” feature on a smart phone?  What application could this have for:

• Visitation – Parks, zoos, museums, etc.
• Events – Galas, walk/run/ride-a-thons
• Peer-to-peer Fundraising
• Advocacy 
• Direct Mail
• Others?

In my mind, the possibilities are limitless – smart mail that allows you donate by phone, self-led tours or art exhibits, peer-to-peer donations made by bumping phones together.  I’m excited to see what the future holds for mobile technologies in the nonprofit space – aren’t you?

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Content is King

To stay up to date with current trends and best practices, my team and I read various industry blogs and websites about both User Experience and Nonprofit Marketing. Content Strategy has been all the rage recently in the UX world and I was excited to see this topic make its way into the nonprofit space. See this great guest post on Katya’s Non-Profit Marketing Blog.

I particularly liked this quote: "In a nutshell, content marketing is the art of understanding exactly what your target audience wants to know about your issue area and delivering it to them in a relevant and compelling way."

So often, when we work with nonprofits to redesign their websites, content is an afterthought. We start our process with intensive research with the organizations and with their users, our goal being the same as the quote above - to "understand exactly what the target audience wants to know". Then, we translate that research into a design and user experience that meets the needs of the users and internal stakeholders. No matter how much we start talking early and often about content editing, it seems at crunch time, the content is what gets sacrificed. To be able to launch the site sooner, content is often published as-is, with disregard to all of the great research we conducted to get the design and user experience right. Sound familiar?

Our team has been working on ways to emphasize that content is king and we have some tips and techniques to share to help your organization evaluate and adapt your content. It may be a daunting task but it’s one you can do slowly, starting with key, high-traffic pages and working your way down. Ultimately, if your content is lacking, no changes to your design or even your user experience will keep users interested for the long haul. My colleague, Dimitri Lundquist and I will be posting on this topic for the new few months so stay tuned! If there are specific issues or questions you’d like answered about content, let us know in the comments.

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Tired of snow? Get ready to walk, run, or ride this spring!

It’s almost spring event season, and I’ll bet all of you event and program managers out there are gearing up for the influx of walkers, runners, and riders who will be coming to your websites to register for your event in the next few months!  In the spirit of spring cleaning, here are a few tips and some great examples to help get your event homepage in tip-top shape for event season:

1. First, indentify your main audience groups. Ask yourself who you expect to visit your event site, and what they will want to achieve.  What is the process for participants to sign up?  Can a donor easily figure out how to search for and donate on behalf of a participant? Create actions and pathways for each group.  As often as possible, provide conditional content for registered users and fundraisers.
   
   Example:  The American Cancer Society's DetermiNation program.
   
   
   
   You can see that ACS clearly considered their audience groups when designing this page.  For prospects who want to find out more about the program, there is a “Learn More” button in the banner of the page.  For users who are ready to register, a “find an event” section is clearly available.  For donors who wish to donate on behalf of a participant, the “Support an Athlete” box is easily accessible on the right side of the page.  For returning participants, links to my training or participant center are available in the upper right corner.
   
   
2. Highlight your primary actions.  Every fundraising event website should promote two main actions: Register and Donate.  A third action – log in to your fundraising center – should also be readily available for existing participants
   
   Example: The Marine Mammal Center's Run for the Seals
   
   
   
   The Marine Mammal Center quickly designed their event micro-site in less than six weeks – and did a fantastic job!  Their crack team made sure that site visitors know what they’re supposed to do when they get to this page… register, donate, or log in!  The page also provides a quick description of the event and promotes healthy competition straight away with lists of top teams and participants.
   
   
3. Use your BEST images.  The images on your event site tell site visitors what kind of people participate in your event – kids, athletes, pet owners, etc. – and help show how fun or inspiring your event is.  Find images that really represent your event (make sure that they are good quality images), and display them prominently on your event homepage.
   
   Example: The Race, benefitting Cleveland Clinic’s Taussig Cancer Institute
   
   
   
   The Race (benefitting Cleveland Clinic’s Taussig Cancer Institute) is a 1-mile run in Cleveland whose main purpose is to get kids involved in philanthropy at an early age – and show them how fun it can be!  The imagery on the Race homepage clearly indicates that the event is kid-centric and lots of fun.
   
   
   
4. Explain your event.  Develop a tag line or a phrase that explains your event – in 10 words or less.  Use this phrase on the event homepage so that users can quickly understand what your event is all about; then follow it up with more information in the supporting content on the page.
   
   Example: The AIDS Lifecycle
   
   
   
   The AIDS LifeCycle website follows every best practice there is.  Their tag line “Ride to End AIDS” tells you what to do and why in only four words!  There is also a concise description of the event just below the main banner image, making it extremely easy for users to get a fast understanding of what the event is all about.  
   
   
5. Promote team participation.  If your event allows for team participation, you probably already know that team participants are more likely to recruit participants, raise money, and show up on event day than individual participants.  Be sure that the team option is prominently displayed and clearly explained in the registration process.
   
   The American Diabetes Association’s Tour de Cure
   
   
   
   The ADA knows that teams are imperative to the success of the Tour de Cure.  Adding a Teams section to their main navigation, they make team participation sound fun and easy right from the start. Be sure to conditionalize website content and e-mail communications to your team captains and make sure they have everything they need to coach their teams to success.

Best of luck in your spring cleaning!

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New Year's Resolutions

Maybe it’s a little late to start thinking about resolutions since we’re already 18 days into 2011 but better to make them late than not at all, right? Here are some ideas for resolutions for your online marketing strategy this year. Resolve to…

• Listen to your users by conducting periodic reviews of your analytics data and/or surveying them about what works and what doesn’t work on your website.
• Define your audiences, build consensus internally around them and create communications (online and offline) specific for each group.
• Conduct a competitive analysis of some of your favorite sites. Make a list of recommendations for your own site based on your review of your peers.
• Try something new on your site and test it out. Run an A/B test on different donation forms or landing page layouts.
• Update your homepage and key entry pages at least once a week.
• Incorporate social media more thoroughly into your site by encouraging social sharing, displaying dynamic feeds and promoting your social media presences.
• Evaluate traffic to your website from mobile devices and start thinking about if and when you should plan to develop mobile-friendly content.

All year around, we should be paying attention to trends and new technology developments to tweak and enhance online marketing, but the beginning of the year is a great time to take a step back and assess, creating some real, attainable goals for the year. What resolutions have you made or will you make for 2011?

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Deck the Halls

Regardless of what holiday you might be celebrating this year, it’s hard to miss the holiday cheer all around you. There are houses, stores and shopping centers adorned with lights, holiday music in restaurants and on the radio and a nice chill in the air. (even here in Texas!) I took a moment this morning to check out some of our clients’ websites to see how they had "decked the halls" for the holidays. I loved this holiday appeal on the Project HOPE site: 

  

And another one I saw on the PetSmart Charities site:

Have you "decorated" your site for the holidays? It’s still not too late! Think about positioning an honor donation or eCard as "the perfect gift" and promoting the email or mail appeal you’ve sent on your homepage too. Since the holidays are ALL around us, your donors expect you to join in too. Don’t be a Scrooge!

 

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