This question has been asked before, but it’s worth answering in multiple ways. Good advice never gets old! If you find this useful, you’ll definitely be interested in planning your nonprofit website and good questions to ask nonprofit staff for a website project.
We have a specific focus but differing audiences and geographies for which we do that work. How do you balance a website not becoming overwhelming with information overload or info not of interest to that particular constituency?
Nonprofits may have the hardest job of any type of organization with their website. There are often lots of really different audiences for nonprofit websites and each can have incredibly different needs. An agency serving people experiencing homelessness often needs to connect folks with shelter, raise funds from donors, find qualified volunteers, and connect with public officials. All on one website! So, this is all to say that there isn’t an easy answer.
Prioritizing Audiences & Tasks
First, get specific about your audiences. Who are they? Where are they? Why are they interested in your organization?
Second, prioritize your audiences. If everything is important, then nothing is actually important! This can be really hard, but try to pick a primary audience or two at most.
Then, get really specific about what each audience wants to accomplish when coming to your site. These are called “top tasks” in our industry. Remember, get SPECIFIC! You want tasks like “Donate”, “Program Application”, “Contact” and not “Learn more” or “Get inspired”. Just like audiences, put these tasks in relative order of priority to your visitors.
When creating and prioritizing your website audiences and tasks, make sure to include other internal stakeholders in the conversation. You may think the answer is obvious, but talk with your colleagues just to be sure. You may be surprised! This is the type of website discussion that you can productively include staff in, unlike, say, the discussion about whether a donate button should have rounded corners or not.
Review your website with a new perspective
Once you have these tasks in priority order, you are ready to review your website. For each task, ask yourself if it’s easy to find the information or complete the task. Is there a clear “flow” for each task from start to finish? Make changes you think will make these tasks easier to complete.
Once you think your site is improved, do everything you can to find people (not on staff!) and watch them try to complete a task. You’ll be amazed what you learn from doing this just two or three times. And if it doesn’t work, that is OK! Learning what doesn’t work is just as valuable as learning what does.
Don’t fall for the one-click fallacy
Here is why this all works:
- A vast majority of visitors come to your site with a specific task(s) they want to complete.
- People follow the “information scent” of the words, graphics, and menus you provide to complete those tasks.
The few most important tasks on your site probably should always be a click away. That’s why the donate button goes in the top-right corner of every page. But for the rest of the tasks, you have to keep the organized and prioritized.
People are happy to quickly review a list of seven links or use a menu with things that aren’t relevant to them. The trick is to always provide something that seems like to get them one step closer to their goal. You don’t need to shove all information onto the home page or “one click away”, as long as it’s clear how to find it for those who are interested in it.
