Science Backed Advocacy
Union of Concerned Scientists
The Union of Concerned Scientists (UCS)* puts rigorous scientific research to work to solve our planet's most pressing problems. With 50 years of accomplishments and a varied portfolio of work and multiple audiences, UCS was in need of a fresh look and feel that would clearly communicate who they are and provide an intuitive navigation that would guide users to useful and relevant content.
*This site is still in active development and is not live yet.
Roles:
Discovery & Research
Workshop Facilitation
Information Architecture
Usability Testing
Discovery & Research
To better understand our users and identify areas of opportunity, we placed a feedback survey on the website and conducted user interviews, a landscape analysis, and several in-depth interviews with the client. User interviews painted a picture of devoted users who were very happy with the email and social media program. With this in mind, we shifted the primary target audience of the website to prospective supporters (and donors). This would help the organization grow and cultivate new supporters, so it was absolutely critical for a prospective supporter to immediately be able to understand who they are, what they do, and why it matters.
Workshop Facilitation
After discovery and research activities were complete, I worked with the project team to create a series of activities to help present findings to the client and facilitate a conversation on the strategy of the overall project. Activities included defining the core strategy statement, persona creation, and user journey mapping.
Information Architecture
It is important for prospective supporters to be able to understand UCS and its priorities at first glance. But this wasn’t happening. The existing navigation structure provided users few clues to the issues UCS prioritized and worked on. With no structure around second-level pages it was easy for users to get disoriented and confused.
Moving into on-page solutions, I tackled the main user questions one by one. Before asking people to give money or take an action, it was important to clearly explain the problem and its effects on people so if you’re starting at the top of the page, you’re getting important context. Additionally, because I knew most people couldn’t articulate UCS’ purpose, we reiterated their mission in a customizable way on each issue page. Once people moved down the page and had a better sense of the problem and how UCS is working towards solutions, I incorporated CTAs to make direct asks to users, framing it in a way that people understand they’re directly contributing to solutions. And last, for those skeptics who still want to know more before they’re ready to act, we provided a route to learn more.
Building off that “learning more idea,” I wanted to create a destination on the site that really allowed people to do their own research. UCS has incredible educational resources and scientific reports we wanted to surface in a learning destination for all audiences, including scientists. The old (current) website had complicated linking structures that seemed to move users in circles. To tackle this, we created a Reports and Multimedia section that would give an alternative route to for audiences to explore, but also use helpful filters to find a specific report on a topic. A user could go directly to this section of the site, or get there through an issue page providing multiple pathways for discovery, depending on the user’s motivation for visiting the site.
User Testing
The next phase of the project included user testing of the wireframes. Working collaboratively with the client, I determined our biggest questions and assumptions to guide our testing script. I facilitated testing with 6 different participants and identified issues. User testing provided areas for improvements, but also demonstrated that many things were working well. Users liked seeing the issues revealed in the navigation, enjoyed the research library and found clear paths to subissue pages.
Results
The UCS team is thrilled to have a new strategy and design system for their website. They are in active development of this website.