Background

Guide Dogs Queensland (GDQ) helps to provide Queenslanders who are blind or vision impaired with freedom, mobility and independence through their wide range of orientation and mobility services. They have a stellar reputation within the community and a generous, engaging social media presence.

Guide Dogs Queensland approached usto help refresh their website and address current business and customer goals. These were:

• improve the visual and emotive content to reflect the professional and friendly services they provide;
• improve functional and technical capacity of the website;
• increase applications in volunteering;
• increase monetary donations;
• make it easier for current and potential clients to find relevant information.

Strategy and Discovery

The Head of Strategy and I held stakeholder interviews to understand the people behind Guide Dogs Queensland, the organisation’s goals, and manage expectations to what the website could achieve.

With a modest budget, needed to be mindful of prioritising which improvements could be made with the biggest impact to GDQ’s current business goals.

Once interviews were complete and initial requirements gathered, we worked with the Guide Dogs Queensland marketing and business teams suggested to agree on which areas of the website to tackle to meet their goals. These were:

• Online donations. The current online donation flows were not as strong as competitors due to technology limitations and a confusing user experience.
• The volunteering process. The current process was long and confusing, with many breaks and distractions in the user flow.
• Improve IA and content strategy. Create and rewrite content to support current goals and messages, improve the searchability of content, as well as influence SEO and organic search;
• Message overhaul. Workshops with GDQ marketing and business units revealed their passion for the community that surrounded the organisation. More focus was needed on people (clients and staff), not just Guide Dogs;
• Visual design refresh. A refresh of the website’s visual design, with reusable and bespoke components, would help bring their approachable and professional brand personality to life.

Information Architecture

The existing GDQ website had a solid foundation for it’s information architecture, with most sections categorised in a logical way. Opportunities to improve came from cross-referencing related content between pages, improving the clarity and discoverability of calls to action and simplifying the primary content categories (which became the header navigation).

The GDQ website also housed a lot of important information in PDFs or hidden within tabs, making them hard to discover while exploring the site or by a search engine.

Our recommendation was to uncover this information and create specific pages for them, which was a key consideration in our information architecture restructure.

Working with the GDQ marketing team, we designed a new information architecture for the website, that they agreed would support the needs of their business, clients seeking assistance and the greater GDQ community.

Content Strategy, Wireframes and User Journeys

With an agreed upon content strategy, I worked with the GDQ marketing team to design wireframes that would assist different user types through a primary content section or specific page. This process also helped shape their content strategy.

For example, ‘warm and fuzzy’ content mixed with clear instructions were used for messaging around volunteering or monetary donations. Sections that serviced client needs were empathetic, informational, and focussed on the positive outcomes of working with the organisation.

Working with the GDQ marketing and business teams, I designed a number of templates and reusable components that could be used throughout the site, so their unique visual and written content could be updated easily by the GDQ marketing team and web admin. A number of bespoke design opportunities were identified to support some of the story-telling like content pieces from the marketing team.

Designing and prototyping new volunteer application experience

One of the more challenging parts of the project was the business requirement to create an “all-in-one” volunteer application form, which would funnel suitable applicants them down a focussed path of volunteering with dogs  or volunteering with their community. The form would also allow unsuitable applicants to ‘self-screen’ themselves due to the nature of the questions.

I performed a content and user flow audit of the forms and worked with the GDQ volunteer team to understand common applicant habits and behaviours, as well ascertain which questions were best suited at the online application phase, and which could be left for the face-to-face interview phase.

From there I prototyped variations of the application form which relied on progressive disclosure to guide an applicant through.

After testing different variations of the application form with the GDQ team and learning more about applicants behaviour, we agreed that an ‘all-in-one’ form would not be feasible for the initial phase. So, two separate forms were suggested as an intermediate step that still helped identify the right people and match them to a volunteer role.

Improving Donation and Lottery Workflows

One of the business goals for GDQ was to increase the amount of online and regular (monthly and yearly) donations. The current technical infrastructure meant that donors had to call GDQ to organise their direct debit donation, even if they filled in the donation form online.

Once the technical improvements to the website infrastructure were agreed upon, I could design a feasible donation solution that was easy to follow, secure and could be completed entirely online.

Another opportunity we identified to increase monetary funds was to improve the not-for-profit lottery experience. Similar to the regular donation experience, people interested in buying a lottery ticket would need to call GDQ to organise their one-off or regular lottery purchase.

First, I redesigned the lotteries experience to make it easier for people to buy tickets online. Then, working with the GDQ marketing team, I designed new sections to celebrate previous winners, generate excitement about upcoming prizes and enforce the GDQ message of the importance of community fundraising for them as an organisation.

UI and Visual Design

A new website for GDQ meant an opportunity to update their look, which would help convey the friendly, informative, emotive and little-bit-cute personality of their brand at the time.

Working with the GDQ marketing team and the agency Graphic Designer, I created a light, playful visual aesthetic that included a mix of photography, illustrative elements and a colour scheme that adhered to the GDQ brand guidelines.

The user interface was designed with the GDQ content management system in mind, which allowed for reusable components, pages and templates, as well as opportunities for highly customised, bespoke online content areas.

Epilogue

At the time of engagement, all Guide Dogs bodies (including QLD) operated and managed their websites, branding and marketing independently. However, almost a year after the Guide Dogs QLD new website and branding launched, the Guide Dogs Australia network announced that all Guide Dogs state bodies would consolidate their web and branding efforts under one guideline and management system. All states, including QLD, now use the same web solution and branding.