Tips to improve your supporter experience

Though we may not all be User Experience (UX) experts by title, we all have expertise in the experience of being users. Any interaction as user has with a brand constitutes an experience, and these interactions are frequently, and with increasing predominance, in the digital domain.  

Good UX – or supporter experience, as its better known among charities – means that your supporters can easily get from the initial point of engagement (a landing page, for example) to the desired destination seamlessly and with as little frustration as possible. The desired destination, in terms of business objectives, is typically a completed transactional journey, e.g. a donation, but should also be considered as the beginning of a longer-term relationship. 

The bar for what constitutes a good UX has been raised greatly in recent years and the expectations of your audiences are higher than ever thanks to the likes of Amazon, Spotify, and Netflix. If charities don’t get the UX right on their site now, supporters are more likely to walk away from a donations journey, resulting in a loss of valuable funds.  

UX experts Trillium advise starting with a few discrete areas where you know you can make changes and take it step by step. Trillium will be hosting a webinar dedicated to charity UX on 22 June, taking an in-depth look at how charities can get the most out of their digital infrastructure, with respect to maximising opportunities for donor engagement and conversion. 

In the meantime, here are a few key areas they think charities should prioritise, with each one providing the potential to yield significant results. 

Get the data right 

For charities, there’s no such thing as too much data – what isn’t useful now might be in a year’s time. Messy data can always be better organised, but no data is no data.  

However, there is often a conflict between the needs of the organisation and the experience of supporters. How many times have you abandoned an online journey because the form was too long? Or it asked for information you didn’t feel inclined to share?  

This is why having a data strategy and policy for use is more than just a legal requirement – it also has the potential to deliver big improvements for the user experience. When deciding what to collect, think carefully about the kinds of data your charity can and will use, and what impact that data can have for both the organisation and your supporters.  

You should also make clear to users why you’re asking for the information and how it will be used. Often, simply providing an explanation will be sufficient to allay concerns.  

Trillium’s top tip: 

Apply the same process to evaluating data you currently collect, as well as new data. You might discover redundant fields that can be replaced with more valuable ones. Would removing such fields have a positive impact on the user experience, thus increase the chance of conversion?

Map the journeys through your site 

Journey maps help to conceptualise the routes that supporters will take when they engage with you, breaking down each stage and aligning it with organisational goals. It’s a useful way to evaluate each step a supporter may take on your site and highlight opportunities for improvements to their experience. 

Trillium recommends picking one or two high-priority user journeys as a starting point, such as making a donation or registering for a fundraising event.  Start with a user story statement that summarises the purpose of the journey, e.g. “As X user, I need Y, in order to get to Z”.  

For each stage of the journey, think about:  

• User goals – what is the user trying to achieve at this stage of the journey? 
• Touchpoints – which part(s) of the service does the user interact with? 
• Opportunities – what opportunities are there to improve the experience? 

Trillium’s top tip: 

Remember to consider the offline touchpoints users may have with your organisation too – such as traditional advertising and community fundraising.  

Get real users involved in the process 

User testing is a critical part of any digital project. By getting real people to engage with your website or digital services during the design process, you can identify any pain points or frustrations before your project goes live. Likewise, it will give you a good understanding of what’s working well, and more crucially, provide validation.  

It’s easy to lose critical distance and bringing users in can provide fresh and alternative perspectives. You might find that feedback from users helps to identify requirements you hadn’t considered or even completely new ideas.  

Trillium’s top tip: 

If you’re looking for a way to get your users more involved in the design process, consider using participatory design. Rather than bringing users in to test features and services that have already been designed, participatory design invites end-users into the earlier stages of your project.  

Working together with your users will help craft the design for their specific needs and allow their unique experiences to enhance the result rather than waiting to test later on. It also offers a great opportunity to understand your users’ preconceived expectations and wants.    

Ensure digital inclusivity and accessibility 

It is estimated that more than 18% of the population have a limiting long-term illness, impairment, or disability. Making sites inclusive and accessible can help charities expand their reach and communicate better with their supporters.  

When thinking about the priority areas for your organisation, consider your users and their needs and circumstances. Think about how these can affect your users’ access to the technology and what the lowest denominator should be for your users to reach your site and gain the best outcome from their visit. 

There’s a good chance that making things more accessible will have benefits for more of your audience than you might initially think.  

Trillium’s top tip:  

Start now, start small, but start! Though a full program of UX improvement can be daunting, not least because of the perceived cost and demands on time, there are almost always things within easy reach that can be addressed without the need for any investment in design or technology.  

A good example of this is providing additional instructions in areas where there are known recurring issues. It may not be possible to change the design or behaviour, due to technical or budgetary limitations, but if users are advised of the limitations and how to work around them in advance, it largely mitigates an issue. A collection of small enhancements of this nature frequently result in a significant uplift in user satisfaction, at very little cost.