Background:
Oasis Rest International (ORI), formerly known as Life Impact Ministries, is a Christian non-profit organization with a mission to offer restful retreats to "burnt out" Christian workers, such as pastors and missionaries, worldwide. They achieve this by collaborating with and providing training to supportive hosts. (Think: Airbnb, but booking an entire retreat). To enhance their services, ORI hired Fritz Design Agency for a comprehensive project encompassing website redesign, rebranding, and user research. As the project's sole UX Designer, I was hired to ensure an exceptional user experience for the final product.
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At Fritz I worked with the Creative Director, the in-house graphic designer, and served as the primary point of communication between Fritz Design Agency and the ORI leadership team, including their in-house developer
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Figma, UsabilityHub (survey design)
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Limited budget for redesign and research
Discovery
When ORI approached Fritz Agency, they acknowledged that their website was outdated and confusing. While they had a basic understanding of their user base, there was a lack of substantial research, specific goals, or a clear vision beyond recognizing the current website's shortcomings. My first task was to conduct in-depth research and define explicit problems, objectives, and goals to establish a solid foundation for the project. I delved into understanding the specific pain points that needed addressing and identifying measurable indicators of success. I began by conducting a UX website audit and stakeholder interviews as a starting place to begin user research and design.
What about the current website was specifically bad and unusable?
How would success be measured?
What information did they have about their current user base?
What were current users saying?
What were the long-term goals of ORI and how did it include their website?
Research
Through stakeholder interviews with the ORI leadership team, I was able to identify their 3 primary users:
There was a limited timeframe and budget for this project, so I had to prioritize where research could be best used. The administration team had documented feedback and questions received from users of current website:
Through stakeholder interviews, I uncovered one of ORI’s primary business goals is to grow their number of hosts by 100+ over the next 10 years. While the administration director had received valuable feedback for their guest user base, there was a lack of information on how the website redesign could support their hosts. Moreover, the way the current website displayed each host’s accommodations and retreats varied widely, and I needed to uncover how to best organize each host’s retreat information.
What motivated current hosts to partner with ORI?
What information did they find critical to decide to become a host?
What feedback have they heard in person from guests that might have not made it to the ORI admin team?
Considering the project's limited research budget, I made a strategic decision to focus on conducting research for the website redesign targeting the current hosts. The rationale behind this approach was fourfold:
The existing administration had a wealth of guest and donor feedback that we could leverage for the redesign.
The hosts might have received in-person feedback from users that hadn't been shared, providing valuable insights.
ORI aspired to grow in the area of gaining hosts, making it a priority for the research phase.
Accessing hosts for research was more feasible compared to reaching guests or potential guests, which could present challenges.
I created a survey for ORI to send to their current host base with the goal to gain insights from current hosts about their website and booking system experience, understanding their needs, goals, desires, and frustrations, gather information for effective communication with potential new hosts, identify areas of confusion among current hosts, define retreat categories offered, and uncover any pain points or guest feedback received.
survey results
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survey results 〰️
The survey was distributed to all current ORI hosts via UsabilityHub. The key insights that informed the initial designs included:
Multiple hosts emphasized that prior knowledge of ORI's supportive offerings (financial donation management, training, community engagement, etc.) would have significantly influenced their decision to partner with ORI.
Hosts confirmed widespread guest confusion regarding oasis availability and host characteristics (child-friendly options, etc.).
Many hosts expressed dissatisfaction with the booking system due to its inefficiency and challenges in blocking off availability when guests book outside of ORI's platform.
Among the various retreat categories (marriage counseling, grief and loss, sabbatical guidance, etc.) presented in the survey, each host identified with at least two of these retreat types
Unexpected Challenges
Challenge 1: ORI knew their donation page was clunky, but they were also working with a 3rd party donation website they wanted to keep using, so a big challenge in the user experience for their website involved going back and forth with the ORI leadership coming up with a service design that went beyond the website, including organizing the donation website and follow up emails, that made sense for their business
Challenge 2: Their website was hosted on WordPress and I was tasked with selecting a new WordPress theme for their developer to implement the designs into.
Challenge 3: ORI possessed a substantial amount of information and unique terminology central to their business model (such as "Oasis," the "R.E.S.T." acronym, and other significant phrases). As the UX Designer, my task was to craft a website that not only satisfied ORI's preferences but also ensured a seamless experience for first-time visitors who might encounter these terms for the first time, avoiding any potential confusion.
Information Architecture
ORI operates uniquely, akin to platforms like Airbnb, offering custom retreats with individual hosts. Additionally, booking an "Oasis" is donation-based. Structuring information effectively to communicate this distinct approach while leveraging users' familiarity with existing frameworks, required meticulous information architecture. This ensured that users could grasp the concept without feeling overwhelmed by the details.
Data-driven Designs: Before/After
Showcased below are 3 before and after prototypes I designed for each of ORI’s primary users
For the potential new host: Partnering with ORI
An easy “win” to make this page successful for ORI was giving it a prime spot in the navigation bar. On the original website, getting to this page was buried in the secondary navigation and was titled “join our team”, which felt confusing as it could be understood as joining the ORI organization, not necessarily becoming a host.
With the survey data, I had concrete data into what attracted hosts to ORI. My aim for this page was to systematically showcase the advantages of joining ORI in a clear, organized way.
For the new guest: Finding an Oasis
The prior booking page lacked clarity about the concept of an Oasis, exhibited confusing filters (sorting by "location" merely rearranged the Oasis list, and available Oasis locations were indiscernible), while the "booking inquiry" at the top led users to book based on an Oasis name, resulting in an overall perplexing and disorganized experience.
For the revamped search page, my priority was to precisely define what an Oasis entails, eliminating uncertainties for first-time users. I introduced a visual search map, recognizing location as a primary user criterion. Subsequently, I designed a search filter using information gathered from the survey responses.
My objective was to engage users in "information inputting" mode on the search page and transition them into "viewing" mode on the subsequent page. This contrasted with the previous design, where users simultaneously viewed all Oasis options while attempting to input information, thus optimizing cognitive load management.
For the donor: Donating to ORI
The previous iteration of the website lacked compelling content to inspire user donations toward ORI's mission.
ORI's structure allows for donations to be directed towards the overall ORI organization or specific individual hosts. This distinction led to considerable confusion, prompting an intensive collaboration with the ORI leadership team. Leveraging insights from the survey data, we meticulously crafted information across the website, giving platform, and emails. This strategic approach aimed to ensure users knew exactly what type of donation they wanted to make and how to do it.
Additionally, ORI wanted to highlight various donation formats. To address this, I chose to spotlight the three most prevalent alternate donation methods and offered a comprehensive list of less common options, effectively presenting a well-rounded selection to users.
The prototypes
Conclusions
Moving Forward
Fritz successfully concluded its contract with ORI in August 2023, culminating in the delivery of the Figma web and mobile prototypes, revamped website text content, and an updated style guide and brand book. ORI's internal developer will now integrate the new website design into the WordPress theme recommended by Fritz.
Lessons Learned
Collaborate early and often with all stakeholders
Get creative and use research from wherever it is available, even from other departments