Design for Belonging
The Center, Central Florida's leading nonprofit for the LGBT+ community, recognized the need for a digital transformation. Its previous website was outdated and confusing and didn't reflect the organization's vibrant and inclusive nature..
A communication problem
The Center's website didn't communicate its mission or the resources for the LGBT+ community, causing confusion and frustration for users.
This led many visitors to leave quickly, which reduced awareness, slowed membership growth, and limited donations, ultimately hindering the organization's ability to serve its community.
Overview
In our mobile-first redesign, we created a user-friendly website that supports the Center's mission and fosters community engagement.
Key results included:
- Bounce rates fell by over 50%.
- Engagement increased by 35%.
- User satisfaction reached 85%.
- Conversion rates rose by over 30% in the first six months.
This redesign improved usability and helped the Center connect with its community more effectively.
Additional benefits included:
- Online donations increased by 20%, enhancing fundraising efforts.
- User support inquiries dropped by 40%, allowing staff to focus on programs.
- The website attracted 25% more visitors, raising awareness.
- Event sign-ups and volunteer registrations grew by 30%, boosting community involvement.
Overall, the redesign provided significant financial and operational benefits, enabling the Center to better serve its community.
We improved user engagement by focusing on a user-centered design approach and using feedback to guide our decisions.
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**User Research:** We conducted five interviews and collected 21 survey responses on Facebook, which helped us identify user struggles, particularly with recognizing clickable elements. **Usability Testing & User Flows:** We mapped out user flows to examine navigation and tested how different button labels affected user understanding. **Competitive Analysis:** We looked at five competitor websites to learn best practices and identify ways to stand out. **Persona Development & Empathy Mapping:** We created user personas and maps to better understand their goals and challenges. **Analytics Review:** We checked website analytics to find areas where users were dropping off or needed improvement. **Information Architecture:** Conducting a card-sorting exercise led us to redesign the sitemap for easier navigation. **Wireframing & Prototyping:** Based on our research, we created wireframes and prototypes to enhance user experience. **Style Guide & Final Design:** We established a style guide for consistency and refined the final prototypes through testing. This data-driven approach effectively transformed the website to boost engagement and align with the Center’s mission!
INSIGHTS
Through our user research and testing, we found key insights that are guiding our redesign: **Building Awareness** – Many newcomers don’t know about the Center and its resources. We need to clarify our mission and boost visibility to attract more people. **Simplified Navigation** – Users, especially on mobile, struggle to navigate our site. We need a more intuitive design for a smoother experience that encourages exploration. **Easier Access to Content** – Important information can be hard to find, causing confusion. We aim to improve how our content is organized to make it more accessible and enjoyable for everyone. **Interactive Engagement** – Users want more dynamic content on the homepage. We plan to create a lively platform that connects emotionally, enhancing engagement. **Fostering Community** – We initially thought the community’s needs were mainly basic, but we learned that LGBTQ+ members value connection and belonging. This insight will help us create a more welcoming environment.
We posted a Google forms survey on 5 LGBT+ Orlando Facebook Groups and the 21 responses helped us understand the community and needs.
A diagram of renowned behaviorist and humanist Abraham Maslow's Heirarchy of Needs, showing the importance of love and belonging. Our first assumption was that needs would be physiological, like food and health, but when we synthesized interview and survey data we realized a sense of love and belonging in a community was just, if not more, important to people.
WELCOME MEMBERS
Welcome members and get people involved: We found through interviews and surveys that we needed to bring awareness to what The Center was and that a sense of community and belonging was most important to those surveyed, the team agreed that we must prioritize communicating who the center is and help make people feel welcome and included. We added an "About" section, a "Timeline" to show the organization's longstanding history, a "Welcome" section, and a "Get Involved" section.
Donation feature: Adding a prominent donate feature was a strategic move since The Center relies on most of its funding from donations. This is also another way for people to get involved.
Make navigation minimal and eliminate redundancies. With the hybrid card sort results, we were able to eliminate redundancies and streamline the menu and navigation. This eliminated cognitive overload and reduced time on task, and increased task completion rates in usability tests.
We wanted to encourage community involvement. Through interviews and surveys, we found that raising awareness about the Center and fostering community and belonging is crucial for those surveyed. The team agreed that we must prioritize communicating what the Center is and ensuring everyone feels welcome and included. To achieve this, we added an "About" section, a "Timeline" to highlight the organization's long-standing history, a "Welcome" section, and a "Get Involved" section.
Additionally, we implemented a prominent donation feature, as the Center relies heavily on donations for funding. Donating is also a valuable way for people to get involved.
To enhance user experience, we focused on making navigation minimal and eliminating redundancies. Based on the hybrid card-sort results, we streamlined the menu and navigation, which helped reduce cognitive overload, decrease task completion time, and increase usability test success rates.
MOBILE PROTOTYPE
Click on the arrow in the upper right corner to make this prototype a full screen.
CHALLENGE ASSUMPTIONS
The Center project highlighted the importance of challenging assumptions and staying open-minded during research. As designers, it’s easy to jump to conclusions, but our findings underscored the need to let the data guide our decisions.
Based on our early perceptions, we initially believed the website redesign should focus on meeting basic needs—like food and medical assistance. However, our research revealed that the community prioritized belonging and connection. Many felt marginalized by other organizations, making the Center a crucial space for inclusion and trust.
This insight transformed our approach. We realized our design needed to emphasize connection and warmth rather than just services. By prioritizing user insights, we created a website that captures the true spirit of The Center—a place for resources and belonging.
The results speak for themselves: The Center now boasts a digital space that amplifies its mission, increasing engagement, donations, and awareness while fostering a stronger sense of unity within the LGBT+ community.