MN SNAP Site Redesign
How do you inform potential donors no matter their donation size, it makes a difference? I set out to answer this question and a few more with my team on the MN SNAP website. Before breaking ground on their site redesign, MN SNAP asked us to do a site usability evaluation.
MNSNAP current landing page
The current MN SNAP site below the fold
MN SNAP’s redesign goals
Educate visitors on the value of MN SNAP’s services and the resulting impact on the local pet population
Provide information on and access to available resources for low-income families with pets
Encourage mission-driven donors or volunteers to support or become engaged with the organization
Recruit guests to FurryTail Ball (embedded in our site in the months preceding the event: furrytailball.com)
Who is using the site?
Knowing who we were evaluating the site for was key to make sure we were evaluating and planning our user testing correctly.
Primary users:
Low-income families with pets looking to have their pets spayed/neutered
Rescues and shelters looking to have pets spayed/neutered
Donors looking to make an impact on pet overpopulation in Minnesota
Secondary Users:
Potential volunteers
Potential job candidates
Family and friends of donors (invited as guests to the annual gala)
Research Methodology & Goals
The research team:
Methodology
Heuristic Analysis of the site using the Lance Weisser method.
Remote Usability testing
Affinity Diagram
Our Research Goals:
Using MN SNAPS goals and users, we crafted three goals for our research:
Determine if users can complete the tasks for which they came to the site.
How transparent, trustworthy, and consistent is the donation process.
Can users learn about what types of donations they can make and what services those donations provide?
Remote Testing
Testing was done via zoom and google hangouts. As a team, we wrote our script to ensure we were walking users through the same scenarios.
We recruited 16 users, testing four in a lab setting and 12 in individual sessions. Every session was moderated using ‘think-aloud’ methods. With consent, we recorded our sessions to refer back to for data synthesizing.
We walked users through a series of questions, focusing in on three major tasks that covered our goals:
Imagine that you just adopted a cat that needs to be spayed. Can you show me how you would determine whether you are eligible for spay/neuter services through MN SNAP, and if you are not eligible, how someone who is eligible would register their pet for spay/neuter services?
Imagine that you just adopted a cat that needs to be spayed. Can you show me how you would determine whether you are eligible for spay/neuter services through MN SNAP, and if you are not eligible, how someone who is eligible would register their pet for spay/neuter services?
Let’s say you set aside money each year to give one-time donations to charitable organizations you believe in, and this year you are interested in supporting MN SNAP. How would you go about doing that?
Imagine that you are a recent graduate with a vet degree who is interested in both volunteer opportunities and open positions at MN SNAP. First, I would like you to walk me through the process of signing up to volunteer at MN SNAP.
Synthesizing the Data
To move the project along quickly, each team member put their own data into a group affinity diagram. This helped us determine themes and trends among our users. Using the group finding we compiled individual reports on the data.
User testers by state:
Our team affinity diagram
Key Findings & Recommendations
Content layout
Most of the pages on the MN SNAP site are poorly laid out, leaving lots of open space that could be better utilized.
Registering a pet for surgery seemed to cause the most confusion as people often couldn’t find the qualification information before they began registering for surgery.
Donation Process
Users had a hard time finding the ‘where your dollars go’ page to know what their donation amount was doing for MN SNAP
Having information from the ‘where your dollars go’ page on the donations page gives additional transparency so people can feel good even when they give $5.
Finding the Furrytail Ball was not possible on the website.
Navigation
Users called out the ease of using the navigation bar, noting specifically the call to action buttons; Donate, register for surgery, and after-surgery care.
Despite the great navigation bar, finding a job posting was nearly impossible since no careers page exists on the site. Jobs have previously been announced via the blog.