Charity fundraising platform UX redesign
Reducing friction, simplifying onboarding, and lowering support dependency through improved IA and user flows
A selection of screens of the final output from this project
Summary
Redesigned the iDonate fundraising platform to reduce user friction during onboarding and improve navigation clarity.
| Role: | Sole UX/UI designer |
| Scope: | End-to-end (research → IA → flows → UI → delivery) |
| Key focus: | Onboarding, navigation, dashboard usability |
🎯 Problem
Users struggled to:
- find key actions
- complete onboarding
- confidently edit and manage their pages
This led to frustration, drop-off, and a high volume of support requests.
🚀 What I did
- Simplified navigation into clear primary actions
- Replaced a fragmented onboarding flow with a more intuitive system
- Introduced a visual page editor to replace step-based editing
- Restructured the donation flow to improve clarity and trust
🙌 Outcome
- Reduced cognitive load across core flows
- Improved clarity and user confidence
- Established a scalable structure for future platform growth
- Addressed UX issues contributing to support overhead
Research: Identifying the problem
Scroll map data captured from HotJar integration
Behavioural data & analytics
I analysed site analytics and Hotjar recordings to understand how users actually interacted with the platform.
This surfaced:
- inconsistent navigation behaviour
- hesitation around key CTAs
- drop-off patterns during onboarding
Remote usability testing session
Usability testing & depth interviews
I conducted usability testing sessions across a range of users (varying in age, device, and technical ability), asking them to:
- create a fundraiser
- edit their page
- make a donation
Key insight:
The system functioned as intended, but users still struggled due to a lack of clarity.
Competitive benchmarking exercise
Competitive benchmarking
I reviewed competing platforms to understand expected patterns.
Key takeaway:
- Most competitors used simple, linear onboarding
- iDonate’s experience was comparatively fragmented and overloaded
This helped validate that the issue wasn’t user ability, it was structural complexity.
The problem
User research and analytics revealed consistent friction across the core experience:
- 9Users struggled to find key actions (especially “create fundraiser”)
- 9Onboarding was unclear and slow, leading to frustration
- 9The dashboard and editing experience caused confusion and errors
- 9The donation flow reduced trust at critical moments
- 9The overall experience lacked clarity and emotional engagement
This created real issues across:
- ruser success
- rcompletion rates
- rand support overhead
Defining design decisions
Navigation confusion
🎯 Problem
Users struggled to find the primary action due to:
- inconsistent labelling
- multiple competing entry points
🚀 Design decision
Reduce navigation to a small set of clear primary actions:
- Create fundraiser
- Search
- Login
💡 Why
We prioritised clarity over flexibility, accepting that edge cases would be handled through secondary paths.
Onboarding friction
🎯 Problem
Users were expected to search for events using a date-based system that wasn’t clearly communicated, causing repeated failure and frustration.
🚀 Design decision
Replace the date-based flow with a flexible search system (name, location, date).
💡 Why
This aligned with user mental models and reduced dependency on system-specific knowledge.
Overwhelming dashboard & editing experience
🎯 Problem
Users were confused by:
- sequential “step” editing
- unclear save behaviour
- lack of visibility into changes
🚀 Design decision
Replace the step-based editor with a visual page editor.
💡 Why
We prioritised:
- direct manipulation
- visibility of changes
- reduced cognitive load
This introduced a more intuitive, familiar interaction model.
Low trust in donation flow
🎯 Problem
Users hesitated during checkout due to:
- unclear payment behaviour
- concerns about personal data usage
🚀 Design decision
Restructure checkout into three clear steps:
- Payment method
- Donation details
- Payment information
💡 Why
Chunking the process increased clarity and aligned with established e-commerce patterns, improving perceived trust.
Lack of emotional engagement
🎯 Problem
Users expected a more positive, encouraging experience in a charity context.
🚀 Design decision
Introduce:
- success stories
- celebratory feedback
- lightweight motion
💡 Why
To reinforce motivation and emotional reward during key moments.
Designing the solution
User journey map and flow map for “Create a fundraiser” process
Information architecture & flows
I restructured the site around:
- clear primary actions
- simplified navigation
- more intuitive user flows
User journey maps and flow diagrams were used to validate the new structure before moving into UI.
Some wireframe and sketch explorations
Wireframing & iteration
I started with low-fidelity wireframes to rapidly explore:
- layout hierarchy
- interaction patterns
- content structure
This allowed early validation before committing to high-fidelity design.
Using motion to guide user flows
Motion design was used intentionally to:
- guide users through multi-step processes
- reduce perceived complexity
- provide feedback and reinforcement
Animations were implemented using lightweight Lottie assets for performance and scalability.
Visual and brand identity
As part of the redesign, I also refreshed the visual identity to better reflect:
- trust
- clarity
- positivity
This supported both usability and emotional engagement.
Validation & iteration
User validation testing using interactive prototype
Interactive prototypes
Interactive prototypes were tested with users across:
- onboarding
- dashboard editing
- donation flow
🎯 Example finding
Users initially didn’t understand the visual page editor.
🚀 Adjustment
Added a simple contextual banner indicating edit mode.
💡 Result
Users immediately understood interaction intent and navigated confidently.
Design delivery
Handoff and delivery
Final deliverables included:
- fully annotated high-fidelity wireframes
- reusable design system
- interactive prototypes
- video walkthroughs for development teams
Video walkthroughs were particularly effective in aligning stakeholders and reducing implementation ambiguity.
Conclusion
🙌 Outcome
This project addressed key friction points across the platform by:
- simplifying navigation and IA
- reducing onboarding complexity
- improving user confidence during donation
- making content editing more intuitive
It also established a scalable structural foundation for future product expansion under the iDonate platform.
💭 Reflection
This project highlighted a few consistent patterns:
- users needed clarity over additional flexibility
- design decisions needed to align more closely with user mental models
Users responded better to clear, guided flows than to increased options, particularly during onboarding and account setup.
More broadly, it showed how decisions around navigation, flows, and information architecture can directly influence both user experience and operational outcomes, particularly in reducing support dependency.
Feedback and results
"From day 1 it was clear Alan’s approach and thinking would bring idonate to a new level. What we found most useful was his approach in explaining his thinking behind the design theory and providing videos to back up his explanation. This allowed us to make very clear decisions. Alan also took on the full UX testing before his redesign and this has clearly resulted in a much more user friendly platform. We look forward to working with Alan further."
Alan Coyne
Founder, idonate
"UX Designer Alan Travers has crafted a clean, user-friendly platform that will significantly raise the profile of the business as it grows and expands into new regions."
All-Ireland Business Foundation
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