World Bicycle Relief (WBR) provides bicycles to students, healthcare workers, and farmers in some of the most rural parts of the world. They brought on our Blue State team to help them increase online donations, email sign-ups, and overall website effectiveness, in addition to a routine design refresh of their site.

Challenges

Despite impactful work, a compelling operating model, and partnerships with organizations like UNICEF, WBR faced low name recognition and skepticism from new audiences.

The global nature of WBR’s work and donor pool had led to a cumbersome and confusing donation flow that was attempting to comply with many different regulatory frameworks in the same small real estate.

Project Goals

Simplify donation flows using geolocation to generate only the fields required in each user's country/region
Streamline site content to provide a well-curated experience
Refresh website look-and-feel
Better serve/support existing and potential donors/fundraisers through the site

My Roles

UX lead
Content strategist
Co-researcher

Results

Much more effective showcase of WBR's work and impact through content and photography
New site structure that met WBR’s operational needs for simplicity, affordability, and global compliance
An online experience that was better positioned to increase online online donations and email sign-ups

Process

User & Stakeholder Interviews

Through speaking with new donors, frequent donors, active fundraisers, and internal staff, our brand strategist and I identified two priority audiences:

People for whom cycling is a regular part of their daily/weekly life
People passionate about ensuring girls and young women have equal access to education

Discovery of WBR typically happens through search engines and cycling community posts. Many donors were initially skeptical due both to a lack of prior awareness of the organization and a feeling of “It seems too good to be true” and “Is this a real thing?” But once they felt confident in WBR’s legitimacy as a nonprofit, the reactions were overwhelmingly positive:

Tangible gifts like the Buffalo Bike are compelling to potential donors — it’s easy to picture and simple to understand
WBR's financial transparency is appreciated
Powerful stories and photography (which WBR has in abundance) are impactful, and should be showcased even more

*User experience map for one of WBR's priority audiences — created by Andrea Powell*

Content Audit and Information Architecture

The site had grown unwieldy and confusing over time, so I conducted a comprehensive site content audit to better understand all the content we had to work with and what was/wasn’t working on the current site. The largest issues I found included:

Unclear core mission
Outdated and sporadic content
Confusing navigation
Lack of clarity on ways to support WBR's work

*Sitewide content audit — conducted by Andrea Powell*

Focus Areas

Based on our research and after site enhancement prioritization workshops with senior stakeholders, we decided the new site should lean into a visual storytelling focus by showcasing WBR's work and impact through dynamic visuals, and stating WBR's central mission succinctly and prominently.

*Site enhancements roadmap after prioritization sessions with senior stakeholders — co-facilitated by Andrea Powell*

It needed streamlined and intentional content that reinforced credibility/trustworthiness and focused on evergreen impact stories rather than frequent updates.

*New header navigation illustrating an updated site content structure that emphasizes key messages about WBR's mission and how the organization operates — wireframes by Andrea Powell*

The site should make use of a modular component-based structure, which would allow for quick and affordable design and development updates in the future; simplify the admin experience; and provide flexible content management and easy maintenance for content creators with limited site management expertise.

*Page templates illustrating modular component-based design and content system — wireframes by Andrea Powell*

WBR should leverage geolocation to provide streamlined donation flows that are still able to maintain compliance with global financial and privacy laws and create personalization around currencies, global office contact information, terminology, and local photos and stories.

*Geolocation personalization for content components — created by Andrea Powell*

Donation Flows

I took the cumbersome existing donation flows and worked closely with WBR subject matter experts and Blue State’s technical director to map out variations and dependencies, and reached much more streamlined flows along with simple logic flows to help guide our development team in implementing the geolocation features.

*New simplified geolocation-determined donation flow for EU countries — created by Andrea Powell and Joy Nelson*

Outcome

The redesigned website effectively showcased WBR's work and impact while meeting their operational needs for simplicity, affordability, and global compliance. Key improvements included:

Clear presentation of WBR's central mission and visually dynamic storytelling highlighting WBR's impact
Streamlined content focused on evergreen stories
Enhanced credibility through transparent communication
Simplified donation process tailored to user location

The new site structure and content strategy aimed to increase online donations and email sign-ups by clearly communicating WBR's mission, impact, and credibility to potential supporters.

World Bicycle Relief Website Redesign & Donation Flows