Many thanks to Abny Santicola at Fundraising Success mag for pointing us to the latest usability testing on nonprofit websites by design guru Jakob Nielsen.
Nielsen is the best at this. His methodology is to observe in realtime how visitors actually use websites, read e-newsletters, etc. I wish there were a Nielsen of direct mail usability!
In this study, Nielsen looks specifically at the effectiveness of nonprofit websites at eliciting online donations. People were observed navigating sites of 23 groups like Environmental Defense Fund, Habitat for Humanity, Red Cross, and the National Gallery of Art.
Here are what Nielsen calls "donation-killers":
- 47% were usability problems relating to page and site design, including unintuitive information architecture, cluttered pages, and confusing workflow. Amazingly, on 17% of the sites, users couldn’t find where to make a donation. You’d imagine that donation-dependent sites would at least get that one design element right, but banner-blindness or over-formatting caused people to overlook some donation buttons.
- 53% were content issues related to writing for the Web, including unclear or missing information and confusing terms.
This is a very detailed report costing $98. But even if your nonprofit is only raising $1,000 a year online, you’ll find insights that will easily pay back your investment. You can visit Nielsen’s site here to get a good overview of the kind of analysis and recommendations that are provided in the report.
Jakob Nielsen, you deserve a raise!
Tom Belford
This article was posted in: charities, direct marketing, email marketing, fundraising, Hot Research, media usage, new media, nonprofit management, online fundraising, You Deserve a Raise.
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Usability testing is one of the more under utilized things you can do to improve your online results. It doesn’t require a lot of resources or costs to do even basic testing. I highly recommend Steve Krug’s book “Don’t Make Me Think” which is written for a non-technical audience.
The Nielsen report covers a lot more than just online donations. It really give a good breakdown of some nonprofit website design best practices.
Some good nuggets in the report include:
- Fixing a process with even minor usability problems might increase donations by 10%.
-The most frequently mentioned turnoffs was a lack of or unclear description of an organization’s mission, goals, objectives, or work.
- Confirmation pages are critical on both e-commerce and donation sites. However, non-profit and charity sites must include a confirmation page as part of the donation process, which should include a receipt for tax purposes. Additionally, a receipt should be emailed to the address provided during the donation process.
- Some charities, especially those that support medical research, treatment, and support, should allow users to specify an individual to make their donation in honor or memory of.
- On the confirmation page, thank users for their donation. It doesn’t need to be elaborate, but a simple recognition is appreciated. Also, it’s nice to reiterate how the money will be used.
The report should pay for itself if you try just a few of the recommendations.
I had a slightly different take on the same source site, for what it may be worth: http://happydonors.com/?p=293
Thanks for the great link to the report. It’s worth noting that A/B testing is always critical for usability. Slight changes in locations of buttons, color schemes, or work flows can lead to significantly different results.
[...] — the best advice/commentary blog for nonprofits out there — recently commented on the Nielson Norman report I just cited. Blackbaud’s Steve McLauglin posted some comments on this including [...]