Executive summary
Creating an engaging, easy to navigate website experience
This project was completed on behalf of Greenpeace Austria in a joint collaboration between Adido and Usertopia (a digital research and design agency).
For Greenpeace Austria, improved UX and easier navigation, compressing the existing domains and a more flexible and responsive backend were of paramount importance. Greenpeace needed to provide a platform that educates users about their work and vision and provides outlets to get involved and help make a difference. People weren’t currently engaging with the Greenpeace website due to an outdated design, and a structure that users found difficult to navigate.
With the Greenpeace network consisting of 26 independent national/regional organisations in over 55 countries across Europe, the Americas, Africa, Asia, Australia and the Pacific, as well as a coordinating body, Greenpeace International, Greenpeace Austria wanted its website to be the best! No pressure then!
The problem
Users of Greenpeace Austria’s website found it difficult to discover content and navigating the website was convoluted, which caused drop-offs in acquisition and long-term engagement of donors and petition-signers.
The "website" also consisted of several main domains and each domain had its own menu. One main goal was therefore to create a consistent navigation and a homogenised single website.
There was also the faulty and out-dated design which was often inconsistent across domains, it took a long time for pages to load, and was lacking the classic welcoming homepage. This, combined with various editor usability problems, meant there was no time like the present to help Greenpeace Austria get this sorted, so they could focus their efforts back on driving website visitors and translating these sessions into user engagement.
The solution
A full mobile-first re-design putting donors' & volunteers' needs first
This project required many elements:
- - Completely new page structure
- - Subdomains minimized
- - Improve the clarity in the frontend and backend
- - Improve SEO
- - MODX set up from scratch to avoid migrating existing issues
- - New page structure & new consistent navigation menu
- - Create a sitemap
The project was split into two key phases: 1) planning and user experience 2) build and launch
The planning & UX phase, in partnership with Usertopia, involved a detailed review of the existing ecosystem, a deep dive into analytics and lots of user feedback. Prospective & existing donors as well as volunteers were interviewed in order to understand their needs and create personas.
With an abundence of insights, the new website was designed with a uniform and modern look, structured by a clear, visual hierarchy. The latter significantly improves the user navigation and structures the information, and it also enables the organization to provide targeted user guidance.
By combining the attributes “courageous”, “serious” and “visionary”, the new design also reflects the Greenpeace spirit!
To provide a user-friendly page navigation and experience, the backend needed to be revised. The page structure was created from scratch and subdomains were removed.
Built on MODX, an open source content management system, the modular content blocks are also flexible but still result in a consistent, visual whole.
Script integration and tracking also needed a complete overhaul, perfect timing for the arrival of Google Analytics 4!
The results
The wishlist of elements were all fulfilled
A new home page that prioritises Greenpeace’s key campaigns
An improved donation journey to highlight security and keep donors engaged
A new way to learn about Greenpeace and their history
News pages that are focused on discovery and legibility
Making petitions clear, concise and engaging to drive signatures
Topic pages designed to educate and drive donations
