United Nations ReliefWeb
United Nations ReliefWeb Home page
The United Nations ReliefWeb site supports humanitarian workers, government and private donors, and non-government organisations in aiding victims of conflicts and natural disasters.
In 2004 the ReliefWeb team redesigned the site to overcome difficulties for users, who often missed links to maps and critical resources. Before the site went live, Hiser was engaged to ensure that the redesign objectives had been met.
What we did: international usability testing
Hiser conducted usability testing in Japan, New York and Switzerland with a diverse range of users, gathering information about their needs and focusing the sessions on the information and services they sought.
Result: critical design refinement
The testing led to some critical insights into areas where the new site may lead users to miss critical information and services, such as:
- Government users failing to notice where and how to donate money to aid appeals
- Users missing current emergencies and disasters, which would have led users to miss disasters occurring in the broad geographic regions they manage. The list of emergencies and disasters was re-positioned on the left of the page so users noticed them. The changes were mocked up between usability testing sessions and evaluated with users in subsequent sessions, proving that the new designs overcame the problem.
- Testing with international users also highlighted how people who speak English as a Second language do not focus on links in the periphery of pages. Key links were enlarged and moved to the centre of pages to ensure users notice them.
