Macmillan Cancer Support improves its website usability
Howard Lake | 5 February 2008 | News
Online accessibility and usability company Webcredible have helped improve the online user experience of Macmillan Cancer Support’s website following an experience testing project.
Webcredible began work in June 2007 to coincide with a refresh of the website. Macmillan had overhauled the site the previous year, adding significant new material. Although this was well received by users and visitors to the site increased dramatically, Macmillan wanted a greater understanding about how users interacted with the site and how usable it was.
Webcredible carried out usability testing to uncover any site specific issues, user research to decide which site strategy would achieve the charity’s business goals, and card sorting to illustrate the best structure for site content.
Now that it is implementing Webcredible‘s recommendations Macmillan reports that it is already seeing significant benefits, especially with an increase in traffic to important areas for site users which had previously been difficult to locate. For example, there has been more than a 200% increase in people seeking information on financial advice.
Katie Smith, Head of New Media, Macmillan Cancer Support, said: “Macmillan had never previously undertaken any usability testing or user analysis of the site and although the site was a tremendous resource, I believed opportunities were being missed. Also, additional information about our users does benefits other internal departments who can incorporate the knowledge into their areas of work.”
Webcredible was selected following a competitive five-way pitch. The initial project budget was £50,000, which included a Webcredible’s standard 30% discount for not-for-profit clients. A number of further projects are now planned including testing a potential new site based around Interactive Conversation.
www.macmillan.org.uk
About Howard Lake
Howard Lake is consultant editor of UK Fundraising. He founded the site in 1994 and successfully sold it in 2022. As director of Giving X Ltd he is exploring growing giving on a massive scale.
He is the founder of Fundraising Camp and co-founder of GoodJobs.