M.J. Murdock Charitable Trust
Website Redesign

My Role:  UX Architect

‍Key Activities: Information Architecture, User Flows, Interaction Design - Wireframes

‍Team size: 5
Agency: Serenity Studios

Project Overview

The Murdock Charitable Trust needed a significant rethink and redesign of their website that would overhaul the user experience, dramatically clarify the grant process for potential applicants, and improve content navigation while better communicating the trust’s multi-dimensional mission and accomplishments.

The trust has several initiatives they pursue such as higher education endeavors and nonprofit growth training. However their predominant mission is to provide grants to nonprofits within their region. Their user type is mostly people and organizations within the local nonprofit sector seeking to apply for a grant. While collaborating with the Serenity Studios team we identified key areas of the existing website that grantseekers could benefit from: An improved task flow, simplified fact finding and a holistic approach to the information and message the trust was seeking to convey.

Case Study - Grant Application Process

A major pain point in the site’s existing design was the complex, convoluted, and copious documentation available to potential grant applicants. Rethinking the explanation of grants available and redesigning the conceptual framework for the grant application flow made it easier to understand and more user-centric, and it was a crucial step to improve this core function of the site.

General Approach

A good rule of thumb for any website is to make sure you understand what the user wants to know and what the business needs them to know based on those wants. Then simplify, prioritize and find creative ways to effectively communicate the information needed.
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For grant opportunities nonprofit users need to know what types of grants Murdock offers, if their organization or school qualifies and the process for applying.

The Trust's existing approach prioritized information about the organization's history and values, which meant that key information users needed was effectively buried under lots of interesting but distracting copy. A key element in the success of this redesign was working with the trust to reimagine the content structure to better tell that story while surfacing critical information for applicants in the existing areas.

Key problems identified for explaining grant opportunities and the initial grant application process
  • Overemphasized content not relevant to most users through prominent placement, making key navigation elements and content harder to find.
    -Process placed before grants available
    -Mission statement and position video displace actionable information for applicants
  • Key information was buried in colorful but unnecessary related historic content
  • The most critical user flow—submitting an application for a grant—consisted primarily of an extensive list of separate PDF files representing different parts of the process without providing any overarching structure to guide applicants and help them submit high-quality applications
  • Post-award materials for grant recipients were presented prominently as part of the application flow
  • Interior pages duplicated large amounts of content due to inefficient structure

Buried within the accordions on the Grant Opportunities page was a PDF that outlined the steps for the Grant Application process. While this document provided some clarity we identified areas for improvement:

  • Did not use logical groupings to simplify the major steps in the process
  • Complicated a linear application process by unnecessarily presenting it as a nonlinear flow
  • Did not provide enough links appropriate site resources to help people understand the requirements of each step

After identifying all the important content on existing pages and scattered across many separate PDFs, I was able to start organizing the information into a linear flow and break information down into a digestible format. The outcome would be to separate the Grant Opportunities and the Grant Application Process into two pages.

Grant Opportunities Page Approach
  • Simplify access to key information by separating it from surrounding, non-essential content
  • Remove extraneous information from first page
  • Clarify offerings by organizing them into relevant sections with clear hierarchy of information and highlighting illustrative examples
  • Move application process information to an appropriate dedicated subpage
Grant Application Process Page Approach
  • Create a simplified, easy-to-understand structure that organizes steps into logical groups
  • Move critical information buried in separate PDF documents directly into the relevant areas of the application flow
  • Retain but deemphasize the PDFs to focus users on key steps and information
  • Surface valuable video content by moving it from nearly-invisible subpage to relevant locations within the process

After a few rounds of wireframes, client feedback, and close work with the design and development teams, the end result is elegant and easily digestible pages.

Client Feedback

"Alissa is a joy to work with for several reasons. Most importantly, from a client perspective, she is unflappable ... no deadline, no content request, nothing phases her. Her response is always, "yes, let's do it!" Furthermore, she is brilliant at what she does. It can be challenging to translate concepts into design if you do not have a design background ... the idea is in your head, but you can't put it on paper. Alissa along with her team were brilliant at helping realize our vision in a visual sense. I will absolutely look for opportunities to partner with Alissa again on future projects. She's amazing."
Colby Reade, Director of Communications - M.J. Murdock Charitable Trust