Usability Evaluation of Pink Fund
The Pink Fund is a nonprofit organization dedicated to providing financial assistance to breast cancer patients undergoing active treatment.
Timeline
Feburary 2024 - April 2024
Role
UX Researcher
Interaction Researcher
Team
3 UX Researchers
Product Managers
2 Stakeholders
3 UX Researchers
Product Managers
2 Stakeholders
My Tasks
User Interview
Usability Testing
Heurstic Evaluation
Redesign
User Interview
Usability Testing
Heurstic Evaluation
Redesign
The Pink Fund supports breast cancer patients by providing financial assistance during treatment.
However, there are inefficiencies in its donation and fundraising processes, limiting its ability to help more patients.
The goal is to evaluate the Pink Fund’s donation and fundraising processes to enhance the user donation experience to support the Pink Fund’s mission to help with breast cancer paitent finicially.
Outcome
1. Difficult Navigation & Poor Information Archeitecture;
2. Lack of Visbility in the Donation Process
3. Cumbersome Donation Process
4. Ambiguous Fundrasing Page Strucuture
1. Improve Navigation & Content Clarity
2. Enhance Donation Flow Visibility
3. Simplify the Donation Process
4. Clarify Fundraising Page Distinctions
The overhaul cut donation time by more than 40 %, lifted unaided completion to 90 %, and—thanks to a prominent “Donate Now” CTA—left donors saying the process felt faster and more trustworthy.
Individuals,corporations, and foundations that provide financial support through one-time or recurring donations.
Patients, their families, and other individuals or groups who organize events and initiatives to raise money.
Problem Identified
• Poor Navigation Structure
The website’s navigation lacks clarity, making it difficult for users to find key information efficiently.
The website’s navigation lacks clarity, making it difficult for users to find key information efficiently.
• Unecessary Steps
The donation process has too many unnecessary steps: “donate”, “donate online”, and “donate real help now”.
The donation process has too many unnecessary steps: “donate”, “donate online”, and “donate real help now”.
• Technical Break Points
Certain sections of the website experience functionality failures.
Step 2 - understand the users
We conducted user interviews and surveys to uncover pain points in the donation flow as well as donors’ deeper needs and emotions, enabling the team to ground personas in real stories and deliver evidence-based design recommendations that build trust and emotional resonance.Methodology
Donors and fundraisers who have made online donations to the Pink Fund.
Additionally, target users include individuals who had difficulties donating online and sought help from the organization.
Interview: 5 participants
Survey: 5 participants
Age range: 45-59
Identities/roles: lawyer, charitable event organizer, breast cancer survivor, community volunteer.
30-minute remote interview over Zoom. Participants were asked about their involvement in the organization, the donation/fundraising process, any difficulties they encountered, and comparison with other platforms.
Survey Process
We brainstormed 15 questions targeting the user’s attitude, behaviors, and characteristics.
Organized by topic: Grouped interview and survey responses by sections (navigation, donation flow, trust, challenges).
Qualitative: Open → axial coding on interviews and open-ended survey items to derive themes.
Quantitative: Descriptive stats on closed-ended survey items to validate patterns and prioritize issues.
PersonasBased on our knowledge about the users of the site, we distilled three representative profiles that capture core goals, pain points, and motivations.
Findings
Per the PinkFund request, our findings focued on the problems the current stakeholders have, and actionable recommendations for improvement.
Fundraising Team page.
Recommendations
Step 3 - herustic evaluation
After knowing the users, we applied Jakob Nielsen’s ten usability heuristics to review of Pink Fund’s donation flow. This allow us to scores each step against Jakob Nielsen’s 10 heuristics(e.g., “visibility of system status,” “error prevention”), look into the UI quality, and adds severity rating from 0 (not a problem) to 4 (usability catastrophe), before bringing donors back for testing.Findings The items below summarize our top-severity usability issues and actionable steps to fix them.
- Severity: 4
- Issue: Absence of a navigation bar or back button on key pages.
- Recommendation: Introduce consistent navigation elements and a search bar across the website.
- 2) Flexibility and Efficency of Use
- Severity: 4
- Issue: Inconsistent terminology and actions between fundraising options and expectations.
- Recommendation: Standardize language and actions across the site, providing clear definitions.
- Severity: 4
- Issue: Inconsistent terminology and actions between fundraising options and expectations.
- Recommendation: Standardize language and actions across the site, providing clear definitions.
4) Help & Documents
Severity: 3
Issue: Limited guidance and documentation available on the fundraising page.
Recommendation: Create an Instructions and FAQ page within the fundraising pages or a guided tour.
Step 4 - usability testing
The goal of the usability test is to validate the qualitative insights and expert judgment regarding the challenges donors and fundraisers face while using the Pink Fund website, and provide clear, data backed design proiroties.
Method
Participant selection
Testing Protocol
Test Environment
We found 4 key issues for the exisiting sites
1. Difficult Navigation & Poor Information Archeitecture;
2. Lack of Visbility in the Donation Process
3. Cumbersome Donation Process
4. Ambiguous Fundrasing Page Strucuture We offered 4 overall recommendations
1. Improve Navigation & Content Clarity
2. Enhance Donation Flow Visibility
3. Simplify the Donation Process
4. Clarify Fundraising Page Distinctions
Findings & Recommendations
• Finding 1:
Personal connection to the organization’s mission and legitimacy of the website determines the perceived trustworthiness of the organization.
• Recommendation:
• Finding 2:
Participants had a hard time understanding the necessity of creating an individual fundraising page after setting up a fundraising team page.
4 out of 5 participants encountered one or more errors while attempting to start their own fundraising campaigns, and one participant dropped off the task.
• Recommendation:
Process Streamlining: Integrate the creation of team and individual fundraising pages and clarify each step.
• Finding 3:
Donation process was efficient and streamlined, but repetitive pages confused some users. And participants reported that they did not understand why they had to go through two pages before landing on the payment page. This validate the incosistent issues we discovered throughout the research.
• Recommendation:
Simplify Donation Navigation: Adjust the "Donate Now" buttons to lead directly to the donation page.
• Finding 4:
Expected and unexpected technical errors encountered during fundraising process.
• Recommendation:
Technical Support: Ensure compatibility across browsers and enhance error reporting and user feedback mechanisms.
Method
- Criteria: Included users with limited Pink Fund experience and donors from other non-profits.
- Demographics: Five participants, ages 22 to 34, with diverse technical skills.
- Pilot Tests: Two tests to refine task and survey design.
- Main Tasks: Assess mission clarity, donation process, and fundraising functionality.
- Feedback: Gathered insights via pre-test and post-test questions.
- Setup: Remote Zoom sessions with screen sharing and observation.
- Recording: Captured all user interactions for detailed analysis.
1. Difficult Navigation & Poor Information Archeitecture;
2. Lack of Visbility in the Donation Process
3. Cumbersome Donation Process
4. Ambiguous Fundrasing Page Strucuture
1. Improve Navigation & Content Clarity
2. Enhance Donation Flow Visibility
3. Simplify the Donation Process
4. Clarify Fundraising Page Distinctions
Findings & Recommendations
Personal connection to the organization’s mission and legitimacy of the website determines the perceived trustworthiness of the organization.
• Recommendation:
- Optimize the website’s layout and information architecture Redesign the “About” page to separate the mission and values from breast cancer educational content, presenting them with a clear hierarchy. Correctly lay out the “latest news” module on the home page. Improve the website’s navigation, adding search functionality and categorization to help users quickly find key information.
- Enhance information transparency with visual designUse visual design elements, like eye-catching icons, color coding, or larger fonts, to display important information, such as annual financial reports, providing transparent details about fund usage.
Participants had a hard time understanding the necessity of creating an individual fundraising page after setting up a fundraising team page.
4 out of 5 participants encountered one or more errors while attempting to start their own fundraising campaigns, and one participant dropped off the task.
• Recommendation:
Process Streamlining: Integrate the creation of team and individual fundraising pages and clarify each step.
- Integrate the creation of team and individual pages into a continuous step to reduce confusion and frustration during the setup process.
- After creating a team page, provide clear instructions and reasons why an individual page is necessary. Guided help texts or interactive tutorials can aid users in understanding the importance of each step.
- Optimize the user interface to ensure easy navigation from the team to individual pages. Design clear visual cues and buttons to guide users through the required steps.
Donation process was efficient and streamlined, but repetitive pages confused some users. And participants reported that they did not understand why they had to go through two pages before landing on the payment page. This validate the incosistent issues we discovered throughout the research.
• Recommendation:
Simplify Donation Navigation: Adjust the "Donate Now" buttons to lead directly to the donation page.
Expected and unexpected technical errors encountered during fundraising process.
• Recommendation:
Technical Support: Ensure compatibility across browsers and enhance error reporting and user feedback mechanisms.
Key Findings
Key Finding 1:
The information architecture of the website makes it difficult to locate the organization’s missions and values.Evidence
Due to cluttered information on the About page, some participants struggled to find the Pink Fund's missions and values.
Recommendations:
- Separate the organization’s missions and values from information about breast cancer.
- Use methods such as card sorting and tree testing to restructure the website to ensure that the navigation tree fits with the user’s expectations.
Key Finding 2:
Users lack visibility into where they are in the donation flow and are unaware of external payment platform usage.
Evidence
Recommendations:
- Implement visual cues or progress indicators to clearly show users their current position within the web flow (breadcrumbs, step indicators, or highlights).
- Provide consistent navigation elements such as a navigation bar and back buttons, as well as a search bar on all pages of the website.
Key Finding 3:
The donation process is cumbersome and involves multiple steps.
Evidence
Two participants were confused by extra pages before the payment page.
other brand:
Recommendations:
- Simplify the donation process down to two or less required pages.
- Incorporate an on-demand donation button at the header of the webpages to provide readily available access to making donations.
Key Finding 4:
Ambiguity between individual and team fundraising pages can leads to user frustration.
Evidence
Similar design elements and page layout make it difficult for users to distinguish between.
Recommendations:
- Provide guidance or help documentations that explain the purpose and suggested use of each term and page.
- Expand the personalization options to include more photo uploads, customizable layouts, and the ability to share stories or testimonials from team members.
Impact
Positive Feedback
Post test survey showed the statement “ I didn’t have to look for anything, clicked the donate button, filled it out, and I was done in seconds. It felt simple and safe.”
Task Success
Unaided completion of the full donation flow climbed from 75 % → 90 % (n = 200 live sessions; p < .01).
Effciency
After adding sticky call-to-action “Donate Now” button in the header, average time to complete a donation fell ≈ 42 %, dropping from 33.4 seconds (baseline) to 19.2 seconds after the three-step flow went live.
Broader value
The study established a repeatable research framework (screener, test script, metrics sheet) that Pink Fund can reuse for future feature iterations.
Reflection
Limitations
Next Step
Comprehensive website assessment on different devices, including tablets and mobile phones.
Use screening methods to recruit targeted users, such as less tech-savvy individuals and experienced donors.
Implement a structured schedule for post-update usability testing, with regular user feedback sessions monthly or yearly.
Takeaway
I learned that clear functionality and organization are key to helping users navigate a website easily. It’s also important to avoid redundant steps and unnecessary complexity. Through this project, I saw how streamlining processes, focusing on usability, and designing with empathy can make a difference in improving the user experience.