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In December 2002 The Usability Company CEO Catriona Campbell carried out a Usability Evaluation on four charity websites. The company funded the research (including the donations that were actually made) and the findings will be made available to the charities in question. The research was necessarily high level as it involved comparing the donation experience across four different charitable websites. Our sample of Internet sites examined included; Oxfam, Barnardos, Save the Children and Cancer Research UK.
Catriona explains the reason for carrying out this research. "It seemed so easy when I was a child in the 70's; Barnardos gave our school boxes in the shape of a Barnardos orphanage, so that the children could collect for orphanages. As the world has modernised we were interested to find out whether the charities had recreated this experience in the online world and whether it was still as simple to donate as dropping coins into a box."
We gave a sample of users the following tasks:
- You would like to make a donation of £5, using the card details on the separate sheet, please do so.
- Find out ways to volunteer.
- Find out the latest charity news on this site.
Summary of Findings
Out of the four charities tested for ease of use, none had an "easy" donation facility, and certainly none cross-sold to donors at the point of donation e.g. volunteer plans etc.
Users wanted to feel good about the donation experience but this was not provided online, and in one case the process actually made participants resentful and unwilling to give at all.
Three key points were uncovered:
- Charity Internet site managers have a big job to do to satisfy web users, and are currently getting it wrong!
- The navigation and labelling of the sites in question all lacked ease of use.
- Users do not "feel good" about using any of the sites we tested
Online Donation
Attempting to donate online, is a very difficult process, and only the most stalwart would go through with the transaction more than once. The results of this piece of research show that 80% of the first time online donors tested in December 2002 were dissatisfied, and 20% found the experience so frustrating that they would not donate online again.
This is disappointing, especially when you consider that the days when charities were staffed by dreamers and do-gooders are long gone. Just like ordinary businesses run for profit, charities now have to rely on commercial skills to survive and thrive in a competitive sector. Andrew Watt, Head of Policy at the Institute of Charity Fundraising Managers, says; charities have long relied on marketing to get their message across - and in the information age, an organisation that is backward in coming forward risks missing out on donations.
"Fundraising is about creating a one-on-one relationship with a donor - you are trying to speak to them as an individual". "And that's a relationship where good marketing plays a crucial role."
It is therefore truly disappointing to realise that each of Oxfam, Barnardos, Save the Children and Cancer Research UK do not ensure the online donation process is simple and gratifying.
Give directly' if you want to help.
But its not that easy online! In fact the Oxfam site leaves the donor at a page of the site they have never been to before, with no link back to the Home Page. This leaves the users with the option of re-inserting the URL once more….if they can remember it!
Where does the money go?
The British public has become more generous in the past three years. However unless charities take the opportunity to explain where the money goes - and why - we could become a nation of non-believers. This is not an option on the sites we tested…in fact you have no idea where the money goes, and what percentage goes on admin. etc.
Tax?
Charities last year welcomed a move to allow donors to offset donations against a previous year's income tax liability through the Gift Aid. However not one of our users understood this concept, and it was poorly explained on the sites we tested. In fact one user was so concerned with the fact that they did not know whether or not to tick "Gift Aid" that they did not wish to proceed with the donation. The user had concerns over their personal tax liability – would they now have to pay more tax…or declare the gift on their Self Assessment tax form?
Thanks
It may seem unreasonable to the charities in question, but nearly 75% of the users tested wanted to be served with a personalised thank you message from the charity. The philanthropic gesture of giving was not fulfilled at all by the charities, yet this would be a relatively straightforward exercise to accomplish.
News
It was relatively straight forward finding the latest news on each of the sites, even though one site in particular, Cancer Research UK titled this section "Press Office", and Barnardos had the words "Sagging" and "Boobs" in the title of the leading article – and users queried the relevance on a children's charity site.
Volunteering
Many of the sites tested confused users with poor content labelling. This was particularly prevalent in the search for volunteering positions where frequently they were located under an employment related heading. For example the Barnardos site expected users to be able to navigate to a section on the site entitled "Work With Us" for volunteer positions.
Festive attraction
We were also surprised by such a limited number of festive advertisements from donations or volunteers on each of the sites.
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