Good Examples of Charity Websites
In this article I want to do a quick tour of some really good examples of third sector web design. When I first proposed this article I envisaged doing a mini-survey of the whole uk sector in the hope of finding some of the best website design for charities and social enterprises. Almost as soon as I decided to do this I realised I may have bitten off more than I can chew so in the event I have kept it short and sweet.
I am coming at this question firstly as consumer or user. I am also a professional – a business insider – as a web designer specializing in the look and feel of website design. In assessing any website I tend to come at the task as someone dealing with style – form, colour, composition – but websites are working entities so good looks are only part of the story. I also look at sites from the point of view of their structural logic – also known as their usability: that is – how easy is it to learn what this site does and how it does it?
The Barnardo's website homepage is refreshingly clean and clear and only has one button on the homepage that really demands your attention. Apart from the fact that they clearly want donations the user is not visually harassed by the items on the page. There is even some white space on the page - in the centre of the banner and bottom left, far from being a waste of space, this is the positive use of space, and it enhances the content.
Website users are generally assumed to be pretty impatient and web designers have learned to make sites that deliver the essential message in an instant – in order not to lose too many potential donors or customers before the site has had a chance to really get its case across.
Cancer research UK website homepage is a good example of a site that has instant impact. The page is clearly divided into areas that concern information about cancer, ways to make donations, success stories and latest news.
You pays your money
One issue that occurs to me is – should the size of the website spend be an issue? If a small charity with a small budget wants a website should they not be able to attain excellence within more limited expectations despite having less resources to throw at the project? As I do not have access to budget information I can’t really make a judgement. This was not the case when Third Sector magazine took on the task, they did ask award entrants what was the scale of their website budget so they could take this into account. They run a scheme called the Third Sector Excellence Awards and one of their categories is websites and they came up with the following shortlist after much deliberation:
- British Heart Foundation: BHF.org.uk relaunch
- Healthy Planet: Adopt-a-plot
- Lendwithcare: Lendwithcare.org
- The National Trust: MyFarm
- RAF Benevolent Fund: 1940 Chronicle
I contacted Andy Ricketts, deputy editor at Third Sector who commented that “This was a popular category and attracted a lot of strong applications from charities with a huge range of budgets. The high level of good applications meant the judges had a hard time in coming up with the shortlist.” What is interesting to me about this list is that it ranges from a big charity ‘megasite’ like bhf.org.uk to special event sites like MyFarm and 1940 chronicle. None of these have the look of a low budget site so the answer to my question about the size of the budget remains open.
The British Heart foundation site showing a 'megamenu' drop down, above right. In this example the dropdown shows a sub-navigation list and is also used as a tool to promote features within the section. In this re-design the page is no longer overwhelmed by the corporate red (despite the presence in this shot of a giant red picture slide). The new design makes use of colour coded sections and plenty of white space.
Top of the pops
Another approach to ordering excellence is a straightforward numbers game, the enonymous site is based on an automated ‘mystery shopper’ and measures hits on the sites ‘sales channel’. So this is a measure of people that go to the site to spend money, not just people who hit the site for a moment then drift off. It measures the top 25 sites but only shows the first seven for free, at the time of writing it’s top three are:
The british red cross website homepage showing another megamenu, above right. These big menus provide useful shortcuts and allow people to get a quick overview of what's available on the site and quickly learn how it is structured. This site uses a limited colour palette effectively which gives the site a sense of consistency and gravitas.
Dignity vs enthusiasm
Many charity websites have to fulfill two apparently conflicting needs:
- To inform really clearly about their cause which often involves the relief of serious suffering in some form and
- To raise funds which often involves stunts and special events designed to catch media attention that are light hearted almost in inverse proportion to the seriousness of the fund raising issue.
The alzheimers society website homepage shows a familar mixture of serious information and more lighthearted promotional fundraising material. Users will seek out the detailed information they need - and it should be easy to find - but promotional events need to stand out and attract plenty of attention. This page demonstrates this balancing act perfectly.
Judging by the way most charity sites cater for both needs on their sites it seems that users are quite used to distinguishing the two types of content and happily accept that they have to work their way past one to find the other. This could be seen as an extension of the ‘search’ mentality that using the internet makes you adopt. In a way the two kinds of content balance each other well so that sites neither become too serious nor too light.
Separate Fundraising event sites, (charity walks marathons etc)
Some charities tackle their need for events to get special attention and not overwhelm the content of their main site by having microsites for specific events which can have a quite different character to the main site and a different group of users. In the case below the National trust has targeted young people.
The My Farm National Trust website is clearly aimed at a younger audience so it makes perfect sense to make it a separate entity. The style is informal yet quite clear in a way that is well targeted to the intended user group.
Conclusion
It is hard to compare apples and pears, big sites with a big spend are likely to get most attention and display greater functionality. I think we should still expect that sites with a smaller budget that may be simpler and have fewer bells and whistles should work well and look good. The best sites have compassion for the user, do not overload them with choices or too much information and make their message obvious and functions easy to find.
MacMillan cancer support homepage. The whole new corprate style of the MacMilan cancer support organisation says 'human' through their use of a handdrawn font. The homepage seems to follow a 'less is more approach' so the user can find out what the site offers but is steered towards currently featured issues and a donate button is placed prominently but is not strident.
Simon Fell is senior web designer at Pedalo.
Here are some of examples of our own design work for the third sector
www.beatingbowelcancer.org/
www.toughstuffonline.com/
www.ricability-digitaltv.org/
Here’s an example of a medium/low budget site for a small charity
www.iahcharity.org.uk/
See our portfolio:
http://pedaloblog.lamp.pedaloltd.local/our-work/
Follow Simon on twitter:
http://twitter.com/sfella55
If you know of any high quality uk third sector sites that I have omitted please let us know at info@pedalo.co.uk.
