Prabhat Education Foundation
What is Prabhat?
Prabhat Education Foundation is a nonprofit organization dedicated to inclusive education and the empowerment of children with special needs. Established with a mission to provide equal opportunities for learning and growth, Prabhat offers tailored educational programs, therapy services, and community support, ensuring that every child, regardless of their abilities, can reach their full potential.
I redesigned the Prabhat Education Foundation website to address navigation challenges, improve accessibility, and create a seamless user experience that better reflects the foundation's mission and values.
Nielsen's Heuristic Evaluations
A heuristic evaluation was conducted to identify usability issues within the Prabhat Education Foundation website. The evaluation was based on Nielsen’s 10 Usability Heuristics, focusing on usability, accessibility, consistency, and overall user experience.
Each identified issue was analyzed based on its impact on users and categorized using severity scale:
Severity Scale
🔴 High: Critical usability issues that negatively affect task completion or user experience.
🟡 Medium: Issues that cause confusion, additional effort, or reduced efficiency.
🟢 Low: Minor improvements that improve usability, clarity, or visual experience.
Evaluation Outcome
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Identified 10 usability issues across navigation, accessibility, and information architecture.
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Prioritized issues based on severity to guide the redesign.
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Findings directly influenced the site's navigation, content hierarchy, responsive layouts, and accessibility improvements.
User Research Summary
We surveyed 9 key users to understand how they navigate the current Prabhat Education Foundation site.
The TL;DR: Users visit the site eager to support the foundation, but are blocked by static layouts and confusing navigation.
👥 Who Are the Users?
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The Core Audience: Highly educated young professionals, mostly students (44.4%) and educators (22.2%).
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Age Range: 66.7% of respondents are 25–34 years old.
🛑 The 3 Biggest Friction Points
67%
Hard to Find Info
Users find the site's layout confusing and struggle to locate key resources.
56%
Too Static
The biggest user complaint is the total "lack of interactivity".
33%
Cluttered UI
Clutter and poor layout design make it hard to focus.
🎯 Core User Goals
When users visit the site, they are trying to do two main things:
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Donate & Support: 66.7% want a fast way to contribute.
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Volunteer: 55.6% want to find active volunteering opportunities.
💡 The Redesign Plan
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⚡ Direct Donation: Add a highly visible "Donate" button with clear info on where the money goes.
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📱 Mobile-First Layout: Clean up the clutter and simplify navigation.
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🌐 Translate Blogs: Provide English translation toggles for regional articles.
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🎮 Interactive Media: Add short videos, impact stats, and interactive resources for teachers.
Persona
User Stories
To translate user research into concrete design requirements, I developed three distinct target user personas. I then mapped their goals directly to User Stories and Acceptance Criteria to guide the feature roadmap.
Persona 1: Donor Suresh (The Philanthropist)
Core Focus: Transparency, impact verification, and frictionless giving.
Persona 2: Volunteer Priya (The Changemaker)
Core Focus: Mission alignment, structured involvement, and community updates.
Persona 3: Educator Keshav (The Advocate)
Core Focus: Educational resources, pedagogical updates, and youth outreach.
Usability Testing
We ran 60-minute testing sessions with 5 users to see where the live website fails. Link to final results
The Setup: Users walked through real-world scenarios representing our three target personas (Priya, Suresh, and Keshav).
🛑 The 3 Biggest Friction Points
67.5%
Overall Success Rate
Only 3 out of 9 tasks could be completed by all participants.
18
Usability Issues Found
Over 40% of these were classified as "Blockers" or "Major Issues".
🚨 The 4 Biggest Failures
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100% Lost on the Site: Every single user struggled with navigation and confusing labels.
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100% Donation Blocked: No one could easily figure out alternative ways to donate (like bank transfers).
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100% Page Fatigue: Users were highly frustrated by having to click through endless pages to complete simple tasks.
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75% Form Frustration: Input forms were too small, slow to submit, and had unclear instructions.
🛠️ Our Direct Fixes
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Flat Navigation: Kill the multi-page hopping. Keep key information 1-click away.
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Frictionless Donation: Build an obvious, single-page donation flow.
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Better Forms: Redesign input fields with larger touch targets and clearer labels.
Usability Recommendations
🛠️ Issue/Problem: Lack of consistent labeling and cluttered content on the home page.
Recommendation: Maintain consistent labeling throughout the website, ensuring clarity and ease of navigation. Simplify the layout of the home page to reduce clutter and cognitive overload.
Severity/Priority: 🔴 High
🛠️ Issue/Problem: Difficulty in finding relevant forms on the Get Involved page due to cluttered content.
Recommendation: Streamline content on the Get Involved page by visually identifiable forms with corresponding images and names. Provide clear descriptions or information PDFs for each involvement opportunity.
Severity/Priority: 🟡 Medium
🛠️ Issue/Problem: Cluttered layout and inconsistent color themes on the Donate page.
Recommendation: Align the color theme with the home page for consistency and reorganize content for clarity.
Severity/Priority: 🔴 High
🛠️ Issue/Problem: Cluttered layout and difficulty in finding pathways for volunteering and involvement on the Events page.
Recommendation: Categorize events into distinct sections for upcoming and past events, with dedicated buttons for accessing volunteering forms alongside upcoming events.
Severity/Priority: 🔴 High
🛠️ Issue/Problem: Absence of a help tab in the header impacting users' ability to access help resources promptly.
Recommendation: Add a help tab to the header for easy access to assistance whenever needed.
Severity/Priority: 🔴 High
🛠️ Issue/Problem: Absence of a direct download option for downloadable resources.
Recommendation: Add a prominent download button or symbol to facilitate easier access to downloadable materials.
Severity/Priority: 🟡 Medium
