The initial research for this project began before selecting the non-profit we wanted to work with. We didn’t want to waste our time building this identity for an organization that didn’t necessarily need the help. So, we chose four non-profits that could use some help with their current digital identity, and then one that we saw was performing well. Then, using pro-similarweb.com, our own expertise, and focus groups, we performed a competitive analysis. Our categories and metrics were as follows:

Each metric was also given a rating out of 5 and then averaged out to give a total score out of four for each category. For more subjective metrics like “clarity of mission and goals” or “ease of navigation”, required some opinions outside of our group of three, so we created a focus group with our classmates and asked them to review some metrics to better inform our final rating, minimize bias and improve the reliability of our scores.

After calculating final ratings, we created two perceptual maps to visually compare the difference in performance between organizations.   

SDC performed the lowest in almost all categories. When we presented our findings to SDC’s executive director, she acknowledged the need for improvement and welcomed the opportunity to collaborate for the semester. While they had recently rebranded their logo and colours, we were invited to focus solely on the website. (We still explored a new logo for coursework purposes, but did not include it in the final prototype.)