Beela
Life is about connection. Beela believes that by bridging communities they can create opportunities for non-binary and women immigrants in Sweden’s tech industry.
ROLE: CO-LEAD UX WRITER
Life is about connection. Beela believes that by bridging communities they can create opportunities for non-binary and women immigrants in Sweden’s tech industry.
Beela is a nonprofit organization that helps nonbinary and women immigrants find opportunities in Sweden’s tech industry. They endeavor to promote diversity, equity and inclusion. Beela was launched because the founders understood the difficulty that can come when starting over in a new country with few opportunities and a limited support network. They saw the huge employment gap between immigrants and Swedish natives. As a result they have become committed to closing the gap and aiding immigrant communities.
Beela needed a redesign on its current website. When meeting with the client, their primary concern was that the site did not emphasize their need for donations. This cycle of the project was about making current content more clear and succinct, while working on the site’s overall donation flow.
The research team conducted interviews with participants in their 30’s living primarily in Stockholm, but also in Hong Kong and Norway. The participants primarily worked outside of the tech industry. The goal of the research team was to determine the habits of those affiliated with non-profit organizations. They were asked questions predominantly about why they chose to support the NGO’s that they did and their donation behaviors. This included anything from why and where they donated, to their user experience when giving donations. The direction of the interview questions was determined by the pain points the client outlined in our initial meetings. Below are some of the findings.
This is where the UX writing team made an obvious decision to audit the site. We used findings from the research team’s interviews along with feedback from the client to provide more focus to that audit. Although our goal was to address all language contained on the site, we really needed to concentrate on the donation flow to address business needs.
The writing team made sure to reference Beela’s style guide, being sure to adhere to certain brand characteristics: friendly, approachable, empowered, strong, warm, nurturing, inclusive. The voice and tone needed to convey: impactful, unique, qualified and professional.
The site’s content needed to have a conversational style, while keeping in mind that English was not the first language for many in the audience. The language needed to be translatable while retaining the same meaning.
We also addressed stakeholder concerns about the donation flow. A “donate” button was added to the header of additional pages. In previous iterations the CTA button read “support us” which users found confusing. The question became, “support us” in what way? Through donations? As a volunteer?
A frequently asked questions section was also added to the donation flow, to address many of the common questions donors ask when making a donation.
Changes were also made to existing content based on audits. The overall goal was to take on a tone that was consistent and adhered to the style guide, with a voice that was professional, empowering and impactful. Users wanted to have a better understanding of where their donations were going and a better understanding of the services the organization provided. Rewrites were made throughout the website.
Participants were asked to move through the website. The research team asked participants to focus on:
As a result of user feedback, the writing team made changes to written content, giving specifics about the organization’s goals and what they did to connect mentees with Sweden’s tech industry. We also made it clearer as to what donations were being used for.
This project was a true test in how teams, working together, can make improvements on a website to satisfy business goals and user needs. The organization’s primary goal was to bring in more donations. We created a donor flow that would be more effective in doing just that. During this process I was reminded of how much the user guides what you do. You, as the UX writer, can have your own ideas on how to make the site more user friendly, but ultimately the user must guide you.
One of the challenges, especially when working with developers, was the constantly changing constraints. We also had to learn about Sweden’s customs, laws and protocols, but of course, despite a tight deadline we were able to push forward. Throughout my career when working with cross functional teams I’m always met with a new set of challenges, but I’m never deterred. I always walk away with a better system to solve problems in the future.
.png)