Should Crisis Change Your Website?
Posted on January 18, 2010 at 10:27 PM in The Nerd • (39) Comments
Last week tragedy hit Haiti. Calls to help were rampant over the internet – from donations that could be made through texting, to profits of products being donated directly to organizations responding to the earthquake. Unfortunately, reminders of the opposite of this good intent were also seen on the front pages of news sites, warning me to be careful of fraudulent organizations as well as allegations of tax issues surrounding a certain musician-led charity.
With so much doubt getting in the way of trying to help, it makes your choices a bit more difficult. I knew my preference was to donate to a smaller organization – in hopes that the money I donated would reach the cause sooner – and I knew I didn’t want to get scammed. I decided to rely on some recommendations from my sister (who has the smarts in the Public Health world), a charity review guide, and the one thing I felt comfortable in judging: my reaction to the organizations website and how that organization’s website reacted to the situation. (Screenshots and observations are from Jan 13, 2010)
I started by visiting Charity Navigator, a charity evaluator to read reviews on the organizations I was looking into. I was leaning toward Partners In Health, as they already had a strong presence in Haiti, but wanted to see what else was out there. Charity Navigator had a list of featured charities, so I decided to visit some of them.
“Hmm. I don’t know about this” #1
Every 2 pages or so, Charity Navigator prompted me with a lightbox framed message asking me to donate to their site.
- Is it strange that a charity evaluation website is asking for donations in this manner and this frequency?
- If you were running this website, would you “turn off” these requests when a major disaster strikes? When any disaster strikes?
- Would you prompt users to donate to a charity related to the cause?
I found the lightbox approach to be invasive, especially since it happened so often while I was trying to reach my goal of seeking out an external charity. Speaking of weird lightbox timing:
“Hmm. I don’t know about this” #2
The Red Cross site is probably the most popular of the sites that I visited and had information regarding the Haiti situation on their front page:
that is, as soon as you clicked through this:
- Would this be positioned better as a sidebar call to action as opposed to a full screen alert?
- Is “Joining” the same as donating? Will “Joining” help Haiti?
- Is this the appropriate place for this? The appropriate time?
“Hmm. I don’t know about this” #3
Next I visited the International Rescue Committee. I had originally opened all these sites across multiple tabs, and when I went over to this one, I was suprised to see there was nothing about Haiti at all. Just a very nice looking, but very busy home page. I then realized that there was a auto-rotating slideshow happening, and that the first screen was in regards to Haiti, but had since switched to another story.
- Should other news stories be put aside when a situation like the quake in Haiti happens?
- What if two major catastrophes happen at once?
- Do newer news stories take precedence? Does the magnitude of the other news stories play into the equation?
“Hmm. I don’t know about this” #4
I realized the distraction of the slideshow on the IRC site were nothing compared to the ones on the Operation USA site. The brightly colored site greeted me with a flash loading progress bar and the first slide telling me “Massive Earthquake Hits Haiti. Help us send lifesaving aid today.” paired with an orange “Donate Today!” button.
- Is an exclamation mark on the donate button the appropriate punctuation here?
- How bout the word “Gallery”? Does the word carry positive connotations?
- Should the slideshow content be edited? Is a partner spotlight still a top priority to feature?
- Is promoting your sites store a good idea? Do business strategies/goals change in time of disaster?
“I feel pretty good about this” moment #1
Not only did I like that PIH was already in Haiti, but I liked their website response:
By the day after the earthquake first hit, PIH already has put up a simple, straight to the point splash page. This says to me that this website is on top of things and has their priorities straight. I could go on to view their standard website if I chose (which is nice to verify the organization), or I could get right to the point and donate here. They have since gone on to spruce up the splash page giving even more detailed information regarding the news in Haiti:
Overall, would I rather have an organization spending their time responding to a crisis vs updating their website? Probably. However, I do believe that organizations that might have to encounter breaking news of any kind, should be prepared for when that happens. I found some of the sites I visited did a better job at that then others.
A positive I think is great about the Red Cross, is the ease of donating. The ability to text donations straight from ones phone really cuts down on certain barrier. Of course, there are certain issues that come with text donations as well from making sure you get the number right, to the amount of time it might take for donations to come through. But it’s an interesting approach none-the-less.
One thing I found missing was the ability to donate through Paypal. The ease of which that could add, as well as the already established trust I have as a user of Paypal, might be another way to make the process easier for those wanting to donate. I believe simplicity and security go a long way in these situations. The situations that if people don’t know where to start, they end up turning away. If you know of any other rad services like Charity Navigator or neat usages of technology, like texting to donate, let me, and others know.
Charity Navigator now has a top list of charities responding to the situation in Haiti. Plus one for them.
The IRC has now turned off the slideshow. Still crowded home page, but one less thing to distract me.
Christopher Jones said…
I agree with pretty much all of your points. My only real comment is that I am not sure about the splash page PIH put up. If I was clicking through tabs that I had opened earlier, I could very easily have thought I was looking at an ancient site due to the plainness and closed it before realizing what it was.
That being said, I do like the idea of a splash page for something as important as this to their purpose. Especially while they prepared a more in depth page. I very much like the “Stand with Haiti” section they have on on the home page now.
Overall, I think there are very few situations where major reaction website changes are needed or desirable. But being a charity that concerns itself with disaster relief certainly seems one of them.
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