Norwood, the winner of our website usability day MOT for charities competition (launched last year for World Usability Day) has now reported back on the free consultancy and user testing we delivered to improve the effectiveness of its online presence and will consequently be making improvements to their website.

 

Norwood - a charity that supports people with learning disabilities and children and families in need, has a web presence that spans five websites. We ran four one-on-one, in depth user testing sessions and a workshop to find the most effective means of communicating the range of opportunities that exist within their portfolio of services. 

 

Having finished the free consultancy last month, the results found that the charity needed to improve how it engages with users online, primarily by better conveying the positive impact they have on thousands of families and service users. The tone and messages online didn’t match the power of the services they provide. Furthermore, the use of images and other visuals did not adequately reflect the level of work the charity delivers and it did not create the expected emotional response.  

 

Norwood will now be implementing our findings and recommendations on their websites to improve their overall offering, and take their website to the next level. By improving their overall user experience across the board, we hope that the work will enhance experience to users, supporters and interested visitors, and ultimately bring a substantial benefit to the people they help through improved fundraising and navigational capabilities. 

 

Saul Levitt, Norwood’s new media manager, said: “With a diverse range of people looking for information on Norwood online, it has been difficult in the past to know where best to start improving the way in which we engage with people via the web. This competition prize from Cogapp has been invaluable and we fully intend to make some drastic changes to our websites in order to better communicate how we provide life-changing support to thousands of children, families and adults each year. The user testing gave us a great place to start and we hope to continue a dialogue with Cogapp to implement some of these changes in the near future.”