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Case Study: Helmsley Charitable Trust Website


Case Study: Transforming Helmsley Charitable Trust's Website for Enhanced User Experience and Scalability


Helmsley Charitable Trust stands as a global philanthropic entity dedicated to supporting health and social initiatives worldwide. With a commitment to fostering positive change, Helmsley wanted to revamp its website to serve its mission better and engage its audience effectively, as well as improve their internal workflow of managing and updating their website.



THE CHALLENGE

Helmsley Charitable Trust faced several obstacles with its existing website:

- Lack of visual hierarchy across program pages.
- Disorganized layouts leading to user confusion.
- Legibility and consistency issues across different devices, both desktop and mobile.
- Inconsistent and perplexing navigation structure.
- Presence of sections with visuals lacking meaningful context.
- Inconsistency across naming conventions and categorization.
- Dependency on the Divi WordPress Theme and over 30 plugins for crucial functions, restricting the website's features and scalability.


THE SOLUTION

To address these challenges and improve the UX/UI of the Helmsley Charitable Trust's website, the following solutions were proposed and implemented:

1. Visual Hierarchy Enhancement:
Revamped program pages to establish a clear visual hierarchy, ensuring easier navigation and comprehension for users.
2. Layout Optimization:
Implemented consistent grid layouts across the website to streamline content presentation and improve user experience.
3. Navigation Simplification:
Removed tab elements from the header section to declutter the interface and enhance navigation clarity.
4. UI Improvements:
Replaced UI cards with versatile options such as news listing or card formats based on specific use cases, optimizing user engagement.
5. WordPress Restructuring:
Reengineered the WordPress backend with a fully custom theme, empowering easier content updates and enhancing scalability.
All functions were built into the theme reducing the use of plugins for core functionality completely.
6. Stakeholder Collaboration:
Engaged with key stakeholders, including program and communication leaders, to gather insights and align solutions with organizational goals.
7. User Persona Development:
Developed external and internal user personas to guide design decisions and ensure alignment with user needs and preferences.



On the left: Design system for fonts
On the right: Backend architecture

Before and After
By implementing these comprehensive solutions, Helmsley Charitable Trust successfully transformed its website into a user-friendly, scalable platform, effectively communicating its mission and initiatives to a global audience while fostering meaningful engagement and support.


Client: Helmsley Charitable Trust
Year: 2022 – 2023

Roles in this project:
- Creative Director
- Account Manager
- Project Manager
- Team Mentor
- Development Lead
- UX/UI Research Lead
- UX Designer
- UI Design Lead

Credits:
Work done at SciStories
UX Designer: Pabini Gabriel-Petit 
UI Designer: Jorge Silva
Developer: Carlos Hidalgo

Case Study: Helmsley Charitable Trust Website
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Case Study: Helmsley Charitable Trust Website

Helmsley Charitable Trust is a global philanthropy that supports health and place-based initiatives. We improved the design and re-engineered th Read More

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