MN SNAP Site Redesign

How do you make donating a better experience? I pursue this with the MN SNAP website.

Format: Website

Research: Heuristic Analysis, Remote Usability Tests, Affinity Diagramming

Site URL: mnsnap.org

Group or Solo Project: Group w/ Solo Deliverables

 Executive Summary

Problem-Space

Minnesota Spay/Neuter Assistance Program (MN SNAP) is planning a full site redesign and wanted recommendations for specific changes to make as well as an overview of what is currently working well, especially in regards to the donor experience.

Solution

Heuristic Analysis was conducted of the current MN SNAP website to determine strengths and pain points, and Usability Tests were conducted with pet owners to ascertain how users navigate the site and what is important to them. From there, I presented individually-designed recommendations for usability improvements in a slide deck to MN SNAP leadership.

How Did We Get Here?

 

MN SNAP, Minnesota’s Spay and Neuter Assistance Program, has been helping Minnesota prevent dog and cat overpopulation since 2010. They are planning a site redesign and approached us to perform a site usability evaluation. Their goals are to:

MN SNAP’s current home page

  • Educate visitors on the value of MN SNAP’s services and the resulting impact on the local pet population

  • Provide information on the access to available resources for low-income families with pets

  • Encourage mission-driven donors or volunteers to support or become engaged with the organization

  • Recruit guests to FurryTail Ball (embedded in our site in the months preceding the event)

MN SNAP was looking for insights on things that are working well on the current site as well as ways in which they could strengthen their donor user experience.

The team tasked with fulfilling these goals consisted of myself and:

From MN SNAP’s goals, we crafted three Research Goals in which to conduct our evaluation:

Our Research Assistants provided excellent guidance and insights

  • Determine pain points and opportunity areas regarding the completion of tasks on the site

  • Evaluate user perceptions of the donor process, with regard to how transparent, trustworthy, and consistent the process is

  • Determine how users learn about what types of donations they can make (monetary, vehicle, amazon wish list) and what services those donations provide

Heuristic Analysis. Number ratings were color-coded to visually demonstrate the severity of the issues

Heuristic Analysis

First, heuristic analysis of the existing website was performed, using the five simplified heuristics developed by Lance Weisser in his “A Quicker Heuristic Analysis” report.

We assigned each element evaluated with a number on a scale from 0 to 4, with 0 representing an element that worked well, and 4 representing a critical usability error. Special attention was paid to the core spay/neuter services MN SNAP provides as well as the donation process, though all aspects of the site were evaluated.

These findings were crafted into a Usability Review document, which was used in conjunction with MN SNAP’s site goals and our Research Goals to move to the next phase of our evaluation: Usability Testing.

Usability Testing

As host of the group-moderated sessions, I invited the participants into the meetings, confirmed their consent to be recorded, took notes during the sessions and ensured the sessions were properly recorded.

Remote moderated “Think-Aloud” usability test sessions were conducted with 16 participants. 6 participants owned dogs, 5 owned cats, 3 owned both, and 3 did not own any pets. 14 of 16 participants had experience having their pets spayed or neutered. 13 participants lived in Minnesota, 2 lived in Colorado and 1 lived in Texas. 

Four sessions were conducted in a group-moderated format and the rest were conducted in an individually moderated format. Participants were shown the website and given a variety of tasks to complete to assess the usability of various parts of the site.  The tasks were grouped into three main scenarios:

An Affinity Diagram was constructed from the sessions, which allowed us to determine the key themes and trends that emerged from the usability tests.

  • Imagine that you just adopted a cat that needs to be spayed. Can you show me how you would determine whether you are eligible for spay/neuter services through MN SNAP, and if you are not eligible, how someone who is eligible would register their pet for spay/neuter services? 

  • Let’s say you set aside money each year to give one-time donations to charitable organizations you believe in, and this year you are interested in supporting MN SNAP. How would you go about doing that?

  • Imagine that you are a recent graduate with a vet degree who is interested in both volunteer opportunities and open positions at MN SNAP. First, I would like you to walk me through the process of signing up to volunteer at MN SNAP.


From the raw data, notes were compiled into an Affinity Diagram, which helped us determine themes and trends associated with using the website, gather relevant quotes, and compile statistics about the tasks conducted during the test sessions. Using the synthesized data, we elected to compile our findings individually.

Findings & Recommendations

 

A full report containing my findings and recommendations was drafted and presented to MN SNAP on April 2, 2021. The key findings are below.

Positive Findings

  • Participants scored overall navigation high ( 4.7 of 5)

  • The most critical tasks are easy to find and easy to complete

  • The donation process was considered highly trustworthy and simple to complete ( 3.8 of 5)

  • Participants were drawn to the video on the home page and other images of pets and felt it gave the site a personal touch

“I love it! The video banner at the top is awesome, man!”

“The donation process is pretty straightforward as far as I’m concerned.”

Navigation and Donation both scored highly among participants

 

Recommendation 1: Expand Navigation Bar

 

Problem: Difficult-to-Find Site Elements

  • While most key tasks were easy to find using the navigation bar, tasks that did not make it into the nav-bar were very difficult to find

  • For example, only 2 of 16 participants were able to figure out how to find an open job to apply for

“The FAQ is the last place that I ever would have thought for the [vet clinic info] to be.”

Solution:

  • I recommended expanding the dropdown menus horizontally, which will allow all content on the site to be made visible and easily found by the user

  • I also recommended disabling the ability to click on the menu buttons and moving the content from those pages into the expanded drop-down menus as most participants never discovered they were able to click on those buttons

(1) The vertically-expanding dropdown limits what can be included to only a few options

(2) Some options, like finding a vet clinic, are in vaguely-worded sections and proved hard to find

(3) The Animal Humane Society uses a vertically and horizontally-expanding dropdown menu, which gives them greater navigation flexibility and improves site usability

 

Recommendation 2: Integrate Contextual Messages

Problem: Reduced Services Complicates Registrations

  • When registering a pet for spay/neuter services, users get a vague error message if MN SNAP is at capacity for that type of animal and/or service

  • The designation of the mobile clinic as the “Minneapolis Garage Clinic” located at the same address causes confusion

“I don’t know what the distinction is between the stationary clinic and the garage clinic.”

Solution:

  • The error message should be replaced with a message explaining that MN SNAP is at capacity for spay/neuter services and to try again later (or suggest alternatives)

  • The Garage Clinic should be renamed to ”Mobile Clinic” and the page should include a message stating that, due to COVID-19, the Mobile Clinic will operate out of the main clinic till further notice

(1) The current error message gives no context to the user as to what is happening or what they should do

(2) I redesigned the error message to tell the user why their selection didn’t work and gives them options to allow them to move forward

(2) I redesigned the error message to tell the user why their selection didn’t work and gives them options to allow them to move forward

(3) The “Garage Clinic” is located at the same address as the Stationary Clinic, which confuses users

(3) The “Garage Clinic” is located at the same address as the Stationary Clinic, which confuses users

 

Recommendation 3: Relocate “Where Dollars Go”

Problem: Donation Page Lacks Information

  • The donation page currently only contains the donation plugin and leaves a large amount of empty space to the right of the page

  • A majority of participants had difficulty finding the “Where Dollars Go” page, which contains important information that could spur larger donations

  • MN SNAP also prefers cash and check donations due to the processing fees associated with credit card donations

“I would expect to be able to see where my money is going but I just can’t find it.”

Solution:

  • I recommend adding the information from the ”Where Dollars Go” page to the donations page in the empty space

  • I also recommend adding a feature to the donations plugin allowing donors to add the processing fee into their donation total

(1) My recommendation marries the Donation and “Where Dollars Go” pages together

(2) The Animal Humane Society uses a checkbox to allow donors to add the processing fee into their donation total

 

Recommendation 4: Add “Events & Fundraisers” Page

Problem: No Info on FurryTail Ball

  • We could not find a single mention of the FurryTail Ball on the website

  • Events information appeared sporadically in the News section on the home page but was difficult to search through

Solution:

  • I recommended creating an “Events & Fundraisers” page to be housed under the “How to Help” section of the navigation bar

  • This page could contain information on upcoming events – even if that event is far in the future, so users at least know the event exists

  • There could also be a repository of past events containing posters, photos, and possible info on how much money was raised, supplies donated, etc.

(1) The FurryTail Ball has no current presence on the MN SNAP site

(2) Events can quickly get buried in the back pages of the blog section, never to be seen again

  Deliverables

My findings and recommendations were presented to MN SNAP leadership on April 2, 2021 The report included:

  • Detailed notes on the research done to support the findings

  • A slide deck examining the key areas of the site that needed improvement

  • A repository for elements I felt were strong on the existing site