Increasing online donations to charity websites through donation form design: a Catholic Relief Services case study
Loading...
Links to Files
Permanent Link
Collections
Author/Creator
Author/Creator ORCID
Date
2012
Department
University of Baltimore. School of Information Arts and Technologies
Program
University of Baltimore. Master of Science in Information Design and Information Architecture
Citation of Original Publication
Rights
This item may be protected under Title 17 of the U.S. Copyright Law. It is made available by the University of Baltimore for non-commercial research and educational purposes.
Abstract
The purpose of this study was to investigate whether design changes to a charitable organization's online donation form can lead to an increase in online donations. Catholic Relief Services (CRS), a leading international aid and relief charity located in Baltimore, MD, was the main subject. This research consisted of a literature review of topics, including the psychology of charitable giving, the economic environment of charitable giving in the U.S. and best practices for interaction and form design, and two areas of testing. The first testing portion of this study conducted in-person user testing on the existing monthly donation form for CRS, in order to determine areas for improvement. Next, a multivariate test between the original donation form design and proposed, improved design was conducted on the main CRS website to find which form had a higher conversion rate for online donations. The results of this study were evenly split and warrant further research and discussion in the future.