Does your navigation pass the test?

 As a usability consultant, navigation is really the bread and butter of my work. All the user research, the wireframes, the perfectly architected homepages and site designs – well, they don’t mean nothin’ if the navigation doesn’t work. Unfortunately, there is no quick-fix or band-aid I can prescribe that will make it all better. (you really do need to do the research!) I can give you some tips though that may help identify some problems and some iterative changes you can make along the way.

1. Do you follow the 7 plus or minus 2 rule?
This rule is based on the fact that people can really only absorb about 7 (give or take 2) options in a list before they start forgetting the first options they read. So, for your navigation, you should be sure that each group of navigation hovers around 7. That means you should have around 7 main navigation options and that in each section, you should only have around 7 options also. And, just because you asked, this applies to drop-down, or flyout navigation too. I know that this may come as a shock to many, but because of the psychology behind the 7 plus or minus 2 rule, I’m going to go ahead and say that if your main navigation options are named clearly enough, you should not need to display drop-down options. Now, a lot of sites have more pages than this, right? Well, then you may want to consider a tertiary navigation, but remember that it’s also okay to have some pages on your site that are not represented in the navigation. The navigation below is a good example of one that follows the 7 plus or minus 2 rule.

2. Is your main navigation unambiguous?
Try this – take each of the options in your main navigation and say it out loud alongside each of the other options. Do you get confused at all? Do any of the words mean something similar? If they do, think about how you may be able to rename one to make it clearer. Chances are, if it’s ambiguous for you, your users are totally confused. The navigation below is a good example of an unambiguous navigation since each choice is really distinct.

3. Is your main navigation representative of your entire site?
Identify the key goals that users would have when they visit your site. Maybe they want to learn about your organization, read the latest news about you, take action on an issue, or make a donation. Whatever those key goals are, make sure your navigation provides clear ways for users to access each of those goals. There are two types of navigation below, both from the same site, that provide options that are representative of an entire site. This particular schema uses an informational, or topical navigation along with an action-oriented navigation to provide a wide array of choices.

Topical navigation:


Action-oriented navigation:

4. Does your navigation pass the navigation stress test?
The navigation stress test is all about seeing if your navigation does its job of getting users around the site. Your navigation should tell users where they at any point, where they’ve been and where they can go. This test provides an easy way for you to check and see if your navigation is successful in doing these things. You can read all about the navigation stress test here. (Thanks to Keith Instone for the link) The navigation schema below shows how you can provide visual cues to users about where they are on your site through your navigation. First, you'll see the breadcrumb navigation that many sites offer as a way to see the path the user has taken on the site. Then, you'll see the left navigation from the same site that also highlights the section and page the user is on.

Breadcrumb navigation:


Left navigation:

Asking yourself these 4 questions is a good starting point to getting your navigation in strong, working order, but remember that it's also important to get feedback from your users when making changes to your site too. It can be as simple as sitting down and having conversations with a few of them or as complex as running a card sort test or a usability process test. Let me know in the comments how you've made changes to your navigation over time and what successes you've seen as a result.

Are Nonprofit Email Newsletters Really A Waste of Time?

Recently, Thomas Gensemer who led online communications for the Obama campaign said nonprofit email newsletters are “a waste of time and effort and should be ditched”.  He instead urged organizations to send “short, personalized emails to supporters giving clear instructions for participation”.  For the Obama Campaign, “fundraising and participation tactics included sending regular, short emails to supporters asking recipients to do one thing that day. Each email also told the supporter what their action would accomplish and what would happen next.”  He went on to say “Email newsletters don't get read, yet they take more effort to prepare than a 250-word email”.  He concluded, "email is still a killer application, but only when used properly."

Anyone who helps raise $500m online is worth listening to, but in this case I beg to differ.  While I concur that email messages should be as brief as possible and that it’s important that supporters see the impact of their contributions and actions, the notion that every email should ask a supporter to do something that day is in my opinion incongruent with maximizing donor lifetime value.  Political campaigns are short lived and maximizing participation during the campaign cycle is critical.  In contrast, nonprofits rely on building long-term donor relationships. As such, they should adopt a much more stewardship centered email strategy, regularly sharing stories about the impact of their work, interspersed with calls to action/ fundraising asks at the appropriate frequency. In fact, the ground breaking “Wired Wealthy” research into the online habits and preferences of mid-level and major-donors shows that many of your donors would indeed react negatively to Mr. Gensemer’s recommendations.

For many charities major and planned gifts represent a significant part of total contributions.  Major gifts are generally preceded by ten continuous previous smaller contributions over a number of years.  Planned gifts are typically given by people who have had multi-decade relationships with a charity.  Without a long-term communications orientation, you risk alienating your future major and planned giving donors.  As we learned in the research, the Wired Wealthy, major donors are increasingly online and assess where to direct their contributions based upon how they are engaged online.  Communication preferences vary, but so-called “relationship seekers”, a segment representing 29% of the donors are pretty avid readers of nonprofit newsletters – 42% of them reporting that they read 75% of more of the charity email newsletters they receive.  To quote a relationship seeker, “I do get lots of emails from all these organizations and if it’s got interesting content about their work, I’m happy to get them.  You pick and choose.” 

Many nonprofit newsletters are unfortunately poorly executed.  Far too many send organizational updates versus writing inspirational content.  In the Wired Wealthy research, only 8% agreed strongly that they charity emails they received are generally well written and inspiring.  This is not to say that nonprofit newsletters as a category are a bad strategy.  There are many nonprofits who are utilizing the email newsletter as an effective donor relationship strategy.  Conservation International is a great example.  Their high quality emails present donors with vivid accounts of their work, share successes, and place a significant emphasis on thanking donors.  They invest in writing high quality content that is always donor centered.  They will from time to time ask donors to take action – in their case, make a gift, but those requests are far outnumbered by high quality stewardship and compelling informational updates.

So to Mr. Gensemer, I say, let’s not kill nonprofit email newsletters as a category.  Let’s instead invest in building more donor centered and inspirational communications.  Let’s not sacrifice the development of long-term donor relationships by over whelming them with actions and requests today.

*The screenshot on the right is a great example of a successful, well-made newsletter by Conservation International.

Peer Pressure

Peer Pressure

Every day I sound and look a little bit more like my mother – not that there is anything wrong with that. (She is usually the first one to read these posts.)  Almost daily I hear her in my head or hear her words coming out of my mouth including one of her favorites, “It is not what you say, it is how you say it.”  And psychologists have proven my mother right – at least regarding choosing your words carefully.

Researchers at Arizona State University did a study in conjunction with a local hotel asking people to reuse their towels.  They randomly used one of five messages in 260 rooms and determined which one of the messages lead to highest reuse of towels.  The five messages were:

• “Help the hotel save energy”
• “Help save the environment”
• “Partner with us to help save the environment”
• “Help save resources for future generations”
• “Join your fellow citizens in helping to save the environment”

Peer pressure works. The “Join your fellow citizens” message rated the highest percentage of towel recycling with 44%, second best were the messages encouraging protection of the environment and conservation for future generations with percentages around 31%.  And the least effective messages were ones that mentioned the benefit to the hotel.  The "Join your fellow citizens" message is called a descriptive norm message and is more successful because (as psychologists know) people are influenced by the behavior of others.  Use of descriptive norms are common in the for-profit world, for example “9 out of 10 People Choose our Brand” but using descriptive norms to promote a cause is often overlooked.  

Understanding descriptive norms is important for cause related organizations.  You have to be careful that the messages you send don’t infer what you don’t want. For example, if you use the headline “Tobacco Use is On the Rise” in a smoking cessation campaign the message regarding the behaviors of others is “everybody is smoking”. Crafting a message that highlights positive behavior by the “norm” can be more effective means of persuasion, in this example making sure your message implies “everybody is not smoking”.

If you want to up the ante on this innate human reaction tie the message to a group that the audience identifies with. People tend to conform the most to those they identify with and to groups they feel connected to.  (Take a University of Texas football game - don’t go if you don’t have burnt orange on at least 25% of your body.)   The response to your smoking cessation campaign would improve if you can use a group your audience identifies with, for example, “Longhorns are less likely to smoke than Aggies” or “More than Half of Americans are Non-Smokers”. (Both of these statistics are made up.)

Humans are more willing to comply when we feel like others like us are doing the same thing.   Try tapping into this intrinsic human reaction the next time you ask for an action or donation from your constituents.

Goldstein, N. J., Cialdini, R. B., & Griskevicius, V. (2005). A room with a viewpoint: Using norm-based appeals to motivate conservation behaviors in a hotel setting.
 

Being brave at the top of the slide

Roberta Sladovnik was brave as a child - she's an alum of (and now a fundraiser at) the Colorado Childrens’ Chorale where she took the stage and sang at an early age. But I was first alerted to her bravery by the posting she made (excerpted below) in an online community, where I saw her answering Jessica Curtiss' question about creating new donation forms.

I love the collaborative way that non-profits work together. Jessica spends her energy working to eliminate the disease of substance addiction at the SAMA Foundation. Roberta's organization changes the lives of children through the choral arts. While I believe that children who are "locally grown, globally loved" (as the Chorale describes their kids) are put on a path less likely to struggle with addiction, there's no clear overlap in the two organizations. Yet here was Roberta sharing her expertise in exchange for no direct benefit to herself or her organization.  

*******************Roberta's post*********************

Jessica:

I created a new donation form by using my original donation form (done by Convio), copying it and then editing it. It was pretty easy to do and it's working. You just need to make sure that if it's for a special campaign, separate/different from your "standard" donations, you create a separate campaign for it.

I went to Fundraising and then to the Donation Management page. There, you can create a new campaign. If you click on the "All Donation Forms" tab, you can see your donation forms and then simply copy the one you want to use and then save with a different name. The editor walks you through each step chronologically and you don't have to publish anything right away. It also lets you test your form. I found that I just had to be brave and play with it. The key, though, is to COPY the form, not edit it. Otherwise, you end up changing the form that Convio set up for you.

Don't know if that's helpful or not, but I'm happy to answer any questions you might have. Both of my forms are working and my new form has its own campaign that is tracking correctly for me. If you want to see what I've done, here are links to the forms:

https://secure3.convio.net/cochrl/site/Donation2?idb=1637233917&df_id=1220&1220.donation=form1 -- this is my original Convio form
https://secure3.convio.net/cochrl/site/Donation2?idb=1775077442&df_id=1260&1260.donation=form1  - this is the new form that I created by copying the original form

Roberta
[This is re-posted with Roberta's permission. Note that Roberta also included her phone number for other members of her online community, but I've omitted it here on this public blog.]

*******************************************************

And the tone is so encouraging and helpful. She admits she has to muster some bravery. She gives herself permission to play. She provides examples and click-by-click instructions.

And her input is truly appreciated.  I called Jessica last week and asked her about her experience with online collaboration between peers. Jessica said it had indeed been very helpful, especially seeing how other organizations were using the tools she shared. Real-world examples are the most valuable. And hearing strategic marketing advice from my coworkers chiming in has made a difference, too.

Launching a donation form online that's compelling and complete, secure and reliable can be scary, just like hitting "send" on an email bound for thousands of donors. But I also really like the way Roberta said she let herself "play". Because that's the feeling at the top of a water-slide, too. You can't see the endpoint. But with the cost difference between one donation form and 500 donation forms being nothing, this ride has infinite possibilities.

When the cost difference between a little computer memory and a lot of computer memory became negligible, we got the Mac OS and Windows to replace "the command line". And when the cost difference between downloading a little data and downloading unlimited data went away, we all got YouTube. I'm excited to see what Roberta and Jessica and many others do with online fundraising, one brave act at a time, encouraged by each other.

Care2 Webinar: How online marketing can be your fundraising stimulus plan during tough times

Our friends at Care2.com are hosting a free webinar about fundraising in tough times.  It's titled "How online marketing can be your fundraising stimulus plan during tough times" and is free!  You can register for this webinar by clicking here.

Here are the details:

In tough economic times, a powerful strategy can make all the difference. Does your organization have a firm grasp of its online marketing goals, the tactics it will execute to achieve these goals, and how it will measure success?

This webinar features HJC New Media's president Michael Johnston and online marketing consultant Shannon Pitt, and Heather Tallent online communications manager at Humane Society International. Michael and Shannon will provide an overview of online marketing strategy and tactics, and Heather will share tactics and lessons learned from the nonprofit perspective.

The event will be hosted by Eric Rardin, director of nonprofit services at Care2.

Date: Tue, Feb 24, 2009
Time: 2:00 PM EST
Duration: 1 hour 30 minutes
Host(s): Eric Rardin

Here are some abbreviated presenter bios - click through to the registration form to read the full bios:

Michael Johnston	Michael Johnston is the President and founder of the global fundraising consultancy, Hewitt and Johnston Consultants and the co-founder of Global Legacy Giving Group and the sports-based Pro Am World.
Heather Tallent	Heather Tallent has been managing Online Communications for Humane Society International for 3 years. In addition to building a global email list based on advocacy and fundraising around animal protection issues, Heather has been working with HSI’s country and regional offices to develop their own online programs.
Shannon Pitt	Shannon is HJC’s Interactive Marketing Consultant. Her experience lies in online buying and planning for consumer goods products and now executes Non-Profit initiatives.

This sounds like a great lineup of presenters and some crucial, timely information to help you maximize your fundraising through the online channel during a year where you'll need all the fundraising you can get.  Register today!