This presentation is intended to help community groups, non-profits and humanitarian organisations to design web sites that are easy to use. This will help you achieve the best results for the people you are trying to assist. After having helped many large corporations achieve good results through user centred design we have tried to package up our knowledge and insights to assist community and non-groups to help others. Rather than helping one group at a time we wanted to get our knowledge out there to help as many groups as we can in the important work you do. The insights are based on over 20 years of usability testing in several countries across a range of industries. The presentation is just a starting point. Feel free to add additional comments or guidance you think will be useful for community and non-profit groups. Also feel free to use or evolve the content in any presentations you give to community groups that will help them. We hope you find it helpful.

1. DESIGN USABILITY FOR
HUMANITARIAN WEB SITES
Guidelines and international best practices
Dean Wood, Vinko Grgic, Colette Grgic, Jaana Anttila, Dorota Raczkowska and Sophie Orchard
April 2014
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2. HUMANITARIAN SITES OFTEN
FAIL BECAUSETHEY:
• Don’t help people understand what the site is about or find
what they need - leading people to leave
• Use language that people outside their groups do not
understand - confusing users
• Are designed by committee - so lack of focus
• Don’t involve real users in the design process
• Lack resources, time or knowledge about usability
• Don’t have analytics / metrics to track and improve design
How much more could sites achieve for people they are intended
to help?
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3. WEB USABILITY & USER
EXPERIENCE DESIGN
• Usability has become an established part of large
organisations to ensure they achieve their goals
• The field is a growing and evolving body of knowledge
about what works for users. Practitioners apply the
knowledge and skills
• User centred design is a process of designing for users and
involving users in the design process to:
‣ Gain insights into what they need, how they approach
tasks plus their equipment, environment, skills and attitudes
‣ Collaborate and complete usability testing
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4. WHAT MAKES SITES EASY?
1. Information architecture / site structure
Organisation of information and functionality to give people clear
and fast access to what they need
Number and type of categories (e.g. task, priority, lifecycle...)
2. Navigation and flow
Positioning of links to guide people through content
3. Content / Labelling
Clarity of labels and content
4. Visual design
Clarity of links + aesthetics
5. Interactivity
Richness of functionality, e.g. ability to create, filter, save...
6. Mobile first
Design for mobile / tablet resolutions before desktop
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5. SITE STRUCTURE
WHAT DOESN’T WORK
This is intended to help others learn, not just criticise
Organisation of information and functionality to give
people clear and fast access to what they need
The number and type of categories
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6. MSF presents a reasonable top level structure but it
could be hard for people to know where to go to get
involved in a programme or to donate money. Not
finding this information will impact MSF’s effectiveness.
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Site structure

7. The Red Cross provides some random and confusing
categories, such as War and Law. This would be better
presented in a separate area or with better context.
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Site structure

8. Users are likely to be confused by the number of categories
and how they relate to each other (both top and left nav).
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Site structure

9. SITE STRUCTURE
SITES TO LEARN FROM
Organisation of information and functionality to give
people clear and fast access to what they need
The number and type of categories
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10. Overall, reasonable number of categories
The first section ‘How we help’ enables users to learn what the group
does and what they can get.
Sections like dates and workshops could be grouped but are generally OK.
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Site structure

11. The Red Cross provides good categories to help
people understand their work and to find information
and resources they need.
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Site structure

12. Red Cross Australia provides a greater number of categories in
its structure but this can help users make the best choice to find
what they need.
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Site structure

13. NAVIGATION
WHAT DOESN’T WORK
Positioning of links to guide people through content
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14. The Red Cross site presents navigation everywhere.
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Navigation

15. NAVIGATION
WHAT WORKS
Positioning of links to guide people through content
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16. MSF presents a mega menu when users move their cursor over the
heading.
This saves users time in navigating and helps them find the right
section straight away.
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Navigation

17. The site provides a good navigation bar and call to action
for users to donate.
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Navigation

18. The site provides good calls to action at the bottom of
the page.
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Navigation

19. CONTENT AND LABELLING
WHAT DOESN’T WORK
Clarity of labels and content
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20. OzHarvest does not provide a clear, concise overview of what they
do or engage people in their mission. Our impact is a somewhat
strange label and does not really equate to achievements or work.
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Content & labels

21. CONTENT AND LABELLING
WHAT WORKS
Clarity of labels and content
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22. The site uses clear language.
It also presents an overview about the group on the
home page so people can know what they are about.
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Content & labels

23. The site provides a good overview on the home page.
Users can scroll to learn more about the services.
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Content & labels

24. VISUAL DESIGN
WHAT DOESN’T WORK
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25. The visual design of sites can quickly get
overwhelming, dis-engaging and appear dated.
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Visual design

26. The MSF site could move the Highlights section a bit higher
to give users an indication there is more below if they scroll.
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Visual design

27. Avoid using light colours for text as it impacts readability
(e.g. the mid-green).Always ensure high contrast
between text and background.
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Visual design

28. VISUAL DESIGN
WHAT WORKS
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29. ReliefWeb does a great job of providing an overview on the
home page of what is going on and to give people quick, clear
access to what they need.
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Visual design

30. The MSF site presents a neat, clean home page which makes it
easy for users to focus.The site also scrolls sections through
the carousel on the left so users do not need to navigate.
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Visual design

31. The site provides clear orientation at the top
and a clear visual style.
It would be better if users could filter courses by location.
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Visual design

32. The site presents a clear style with a sense of visual
hierarchy that guides the user’s attention to the most
relevant information.
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Visual design

33. INTERACTIVITY
WHAT WORKS
Sites are increasingly enabling users to connect according to
location or interest and via social media.
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34. www.350.org
The site presents information about local groups.While there is
unnecessary duplication of links it presents clear sections for local
‘groups’,‘events’ and ‘members’.
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Visual design

35. MSF presents a great timeline feature so users can see events that
have happened at different times.While this is good, it is not really
clear what the timeline presents (MSF’s work or simply global events).
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Visual design

36. DESIGN FOR MOBILE
WHAT DOESN’T WORK
Layouts that respond to device resolution (responsive)
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37. On a mobile the Oxfam site does not re-factor and is
very hard to read.This will lead many users accessing
the site on a mobile to simply leave.
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Mobile responsive

38. DESIGN FOR MOBILE
WHAT WORKS
Layouts that respond to device resolution (responsive)
Check out http://blog.xmlswf.com/best-premium-
responsive-charity-wordpress-themes-2014/
http://bradfrostweb.com/
http://mobile.smashingmagazine.com/2012/08/22/separate-
mobile-responsive-website-presidential-smackdown/
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39. 39
Mobile responsive
http://www.templatemonster.com/wordpress-themes/46791.html
This template meets a lot of the key requirements identified in this
review and is responsive, making it a good resource to consider.

40. 40
Mobile responsive
The WWF site rolls up navigation but still provides clear
calls to action.

41. 41
Mobile responsive
The Red Cross site is quite responsive, even if it has
strange / random categories at the top of both mobile
and desktop.

42. SEARCH ENGINE
OPTIMISATION
WHAT WORKS
Use keywords in the name, address, banner and contents so
they are ranked highly in unpaid search results (e.g. on
Google).
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43. The sites listed here are doing a good job of including
keywords on the pages to get ranked highly in Google.
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SEO

44. The sites listed here are doing a good job of including
keywords on the pages to get ranked highly in Google.
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SEO

45. SOCIAL MEDIA
WHAT WORKS
Ensure you have a good presence and make regular updates
to social media sites like Facebook.
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46. Ensure you have a Facebook presence and get people
involved in your group to get others to like the page.WWF
has over 1 million ‘friends’ who can help them reach others.
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Social media

47. RECOMMENDED NEXT STEPS
‣ Apply the recommendations and principles in this
presentation to sites where possible
‣ Groups without much money should look for design
templates in WordPress that implements these
recommendations.
‣ Test ideas with target users.Test the structure, labels and
layout of hand drawn sketches with users initially to save
time and cost
‣ Once the site structure and draft content prove easy for
target users, develop the site fully.
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