How service users can get the most out of your website

Content warning: The below article references abuse, domestic abuse, and exploitation

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Technology must follow the user’s needs, not the other way around – and a charity website is no exception. A website is a portal to your charity’s services, so making it welcoming and easy to navigate is essential to your services making as much of a difference as possible.

 

But how can charities make sure service users get the most out of their website? In this article, we share four key insights from Reason Digital, a social enterprise who has spent 17 years creating digital projects that change lives for the better.

 

 

Research respectfully

 

The first step is creating an open dialogue with current and potential users to understand them better. It’s important to work in a way that is respectful and sensitive to the difficult experiences that participants may have been through, which you are trying to understand better to design your charity’s website.

 

For those whose services involve supporting people with difficult and traumatic experiences, always keep trauma in mind. In the website design process, that means taking every step to avoid exacerbating participants’ trauma and working to create solutions which could make a positive impact to their recovery.

 

Be aware of power dynamics in your research, resisting the idea that you already know what is best for the charity’s service users, and seek genuine collaboration with them. Rather than making assumptions about what people need, listen to their experiences.

 

When researching, codesigning, and testing prototypes with users, use the Social Research Association’s Ethical Guidance as a baseline and build upon this, with awareness that charities’ target audiences can be at greater risk of experiencing emotional distress.

 

 

Ground your services in lived experiences

 

As well as being welcoming, usable, and engaging to service users, charity websites should support charity services themselves to be as effective as possible. To do this, involve those who deeply understand the services that the website is built to support.

 

For example, the ‘Is this OK?’ chatbot gives young people experiencing exploitation and abuse a space to speak up.  When designing the chatbot, an advisory board was formed including a parent whose son was coerced into joining a gang, an ex-gang member who had since rebuilt his life, and a policeman, able to provide insight into how the authorities might deal with certain issues.

 

By taking into consideration how it could assist service provision, the team ensured the chatbot appropriately escalated conversations to the appropriate organisation or signposted for further information.

 

 

Make the visual personal

 

The design of a website massively impacts users’ ability to make the most of it. In refreshing Refuge’s website design, Reason Digital prioritised women in crisis. For example, they avoided including lots of imagery and blocks of text, as those experiencing extreme anxiety can find it difficult to process information quickly.

 

Avoiding imagery on pages aimed at women in crisis was also to speed up the time it takes to scroll, to ease any time pressure experienced by users.

 

Talking to survivors informed the team that the “hide website” button should be present on every page rather than limited pages, allowing users to exit quickly wherever they were on the site. Meanwhile, the National Domestic Abuse Helpline was highlighted by its own shade of blue across the site, making it easily accessible and identifiable.

 

For the ‘Is this OK?’ chatbot, conversations with users revealed the importance of anonymity, leading the team to apply nicknames to users instead of real names, ensure that no IP addresses are taken, and that cookies are disabled.

 

 

Test drive your thinking

 

Pilot projects can reveal how effective your website and its various elements will be when available on a larger scale. It can also give you insights to improving the website even further.

 

For example, the first small pilot project for the ‘Is This OK?’ chatbot pilot highlighted the need to alter the LiveChat “sneak peek” feature, where agents can see what a user is typing before they have sent it. To allow the young users to have complete control of any disclosure made, the pilot gave the team a chance to build a custom Google Chrome extension to block this feature.

 

After the pilot project, the team added an unbranded Tetris-style game designed to reduce anxiety, encourage people to stick around while waiting to be connected, and to provide an extra layer of confidentiality to onlookers.

 

Once launched, you can track the impact your website by following website analytics, as well as consulting service users. Over time, these insights can help you scale services and the website as needed.