RESTRUCTURING THE FOREST SOCIETY WEBSITE: A UX RESEARCH CASE STUDY
When it comes to nonprofit organizations, their websites have a very import job. They must educate visitors, inspire trust, and encourage users to participate through donation, volunteering, or events. Nonprofit organizations rely on the community to support them, and in turn they rely on their website to get that information to the community. When that website contains valuable information but is difficult to navigate, those goals become harder to achieve.
Recently, I conducted my first ever UX research report of the Forest Society website, a conservation-focused organization dedicated to protecting New Hampshire’s forests and natural resources. As someone who went to college in New Hampshire and fell in love with nature there, this site is one that I visit and support a lot. The goal of this project was to understand how users (like me) interact with the current website and recommend ways to improve usability, accessibility, and engagement.
This blog summarizes key insights from the UX research report I put together and highlights how thoughtful design can help nonprofits better serve their communities.
THE FOREST SOCIETY’S GOALS
Society for the Protection of New Hampshire Forests has been in operation since 1901 managing hundreds of forest properties across the state. They provide educational programs, recreational events, and advocacy for conservation initiatives. Because of this mission, the website strives to hit these key goals:
- Educate visitors about conservation
- Promote outdoor recreation
- Encourage membership and donations
- Connect people through volunteer opportunities and local events
While putting together this UX research report, early analysis showed that user experience could be improved to better support these goals.
INITIAL ANALYSIS
The first stage of research focused on reviewing the website’s design and overall structure. During this time, several usability concerns became clear.
- Information overload: pages contain long blocks of text and repeated information, making it difficult for users to navigate the text quickly.
- Complex navigation structure: users must navigate both a top menu and secondary sidebar menu on multiple pages. This causes confusion and depths of repeated information.
- Overwhelming donation pages: the donation process presents too many options at once and takes too long to get to an actual contribution page. This may discourage users from ever completing contribution.
- Content organization issues: some homepage features redirect users to blog posts instead of dedicated pages based on interests, which can cause confusion.
METHODOLOGY
After completing a general analysis, I began leaning into several UX research methods. The following methods were done to learn more about the Forest Society’s users:
- Comparative analysis
- User personas
- User interviews
- User surveys
- Diary study
- Card sorting
- Heuristic evaluation
- Usability testing
While I won’t touch on every UX method I used for the report in this blog post, I encourage you to read the final report attached to the bottom of this page to see the full results.
COMPARATIVE ANALYSIS
To better understand how the site could improve, I conducted a comparative analysis with several well-known conservation organizations.
Comparatively, the Forest Society website presents more dense information and requires more navigation steps to reach key content. This comparison helped establish a benchmark for improving the site’s structure and usability.
PERSONAS: UNDERSTANDING USERS
To better understand the users that might visit the Forest Society, I created user persona profiles representing potential visitors. These personas highlighted the user’s personality, goals, frustrations, and anything that is relevant to a user’s story. These personas help guide design decisions by focusing on real user needs rather than assumptions.
CARD SORTING
Card sorting is a UX method that helps determine how users naturally sort and organize information. For this study I did a closed card sort where 10 participants were asked to sort 25 cards into navigation categories. The results revealed several key and interesting insights.
Based on the data, it was clear that:
- Some existing navigation categories are too broad or unclear.
- Several pieces of information were placed inconsistently by participants.
- Certain sections could be merged or simplified.
One example shows that the category “Current Projects” was often grouped with “What We Do,” suggesting that it doesn’t need to exist as its own primary menu section.
KEY OPPORTUNITY FOR IMPROVEMENT
Based on all the research, several design improvements could drastically improve the Forest Society’s website experience.
- Simplify navigation: reducing redundant menus and clarifying categories would help users find information faster.
- Improve content readability: Breaking up long text blocks with headings, summaries, and visual elements would make pages easier to scan.
- Streamline the donation process: providing a simple donation option first could increase contributions.
- Create dedicated topic pages: users should land on structured pages rather than filtered blog posts.
- Improve the mobile experience: modernizing the mobile interface would help reach users who primarily browse on their phones.
WHY UX MATTERS FOR NONPROFITS
For organizations focused on community engagement, whether that be through events, memberships or donations, usability isn’t just about aesthetics. It’s about impact. There are many things a well-designed website can accomplish like encouraging more donations, increasing volunteer participation, educating the public more effectively, and strengthening community engagement.
By improving navigation, simplifying content, and prioritizing user needs, the Forest Society website could become a more powerful tool for conservation advocacy. As an outdoor enthusiast who loves everything about New Hampshire’s state forests, there is nothing I would love to see more than this website bring more of us together. The world of conservation is in our hands and websites like The Forest Society can strengthen our cause through the power of UX design. To see my full report and learn more about UX research, check out my document below by clicking the button.