Welcome to English is a Hull-based English-language course for adults who have recently started living in England. Their mission is to support people who have just moved to Hull and are struggling through the transition, whether it is about not knowing the language, not being familiar with the locations or not having their close friends with them. Additionally, they offer support to refugees and asylum seekers in multiple different ways such as community building, activities that help with mental health and general support through difficult times in life. The image below presents the general goals of the organisation, and what activities they offer. It is good to keep this in mind when developing the new version of the website as their current one doesn’t fully present everything detailed on this list, thus not fulfilling the purpose of the website (providing information on the organisation).
Initial Design Ideas
The website for this NPO has many faults and errors which inhibit it from becoming a great source of information for newcomers to Hull and those who want to support or volunteer. Firstly, we need to break down the functionalities of this website in order to fully judge what could be improved. I have done this by creating a Hierarchal Task Analysis of the current website, as well as making a new and improved version. The HTA of this website is relatively simple with the main page linking to five subpages, making it easy to find what the user is looking for. However, there are some disadvantages to the structure of the website – for example, the media-based pages and galleries should be grouped together and there should be more pages detailing the goals of this organisation.
Inspiration Sources
I have gathered a wide range of different websites to take inspiration from some of their elements to enrich the website and fulfil its potential. I have decided to include certain stylization techniques when re-designing the Welcome to English website as I want the target audience to feel connected to the design.
Animation-wise, I have decided to take inspiration from Waves for Water – the animations on that website feel intuitive and it doesn’t distract from the message that it’s trying to convey. Rather, it adds to the cause that this NPO is trying to raise awareness about.
Target Audience Analysis
The main target audience of Welcome to English are newcomers, refugees and asylum seekers who want help with integrating into the new society. The primary target audience are adults, since they are not in education anymore where they would have the opportunity to learn languages (expect for if they decide to get further education).
Welcome to English is in a partnership with Yorkshire Wildlife Trust. I believe that it is beneficial for smaller NPOs to partner up with larger organisations not only because of the potential funding support, but also that it provides more opportunities to them (both online and in the physical world).
The secondary target audience consists of volunteers (befrienders) who want to support communities and improve their own communication and teaching skills, as well as having the opportunity to meet new people from different backgrounds and stages of life. The way in which their needs can be met through design is to provide information in a more tailored way so that they can know Welcome to English better as an NPO before joining as a volunteer. Also, the website could be re-designed so that more people would be encouraged to join as a volunteer through showing the impact that the organisation had on people and the community as a whole.
Omni-channel Strategy
Welcome to English does not really have an omni-channel strategy – it could be argued that they have a multi-channel strategy. This is because their channels (website, social media, physical presence, print, etc.) are not integrated fully with each other in order to form a coherent experience for the audience. One way in which this could be improved is to plan out the way in which all of these channels could be connected.
Firstly, the branding for Welcome to English needs to be re-designed and reconsidered to fit the needs of the organisation. The branding would have a friendly tone to it in order to make those who need this service feel welcomed and not intimidated. Currently, they do not have one identity for the posts that they publish onto social media – this could be because they don’t prioritize the branding as they focus on being established physically rather than digitally.
After looking at Welcome to English’s Facebook page, I have arrived at the conclusion that there is a general sense of branding however it is rather weak and it doesn’t even fit the aesthetic purpose and the information could be communicated in a much more precise way. My plan for the social media posts includes starting from scratch, think of a general branding that can be applied to all posts, and then writing up the posts with that established branding applied to it.
Features & Functionalities
Welcome to English should include features and functions that align with its missions and goals as a non-profit organisation. The main goal of this website (on the lowest level of interactivity) is being able to find enough information presented in a well documented way therefore the goal, the location, the activities and the story behind them should be included in a way that is easy to find. When it comes to the secondary level of interactivity, some website features that should be added include: a search button, an E-mail sign up button, newsletters, possibly a forum, and an exclusive area for members. I believe that Welcome to English should have an exclusive area for members where the learners and the volunteers can share their thoughts, requests for support or achievements can be greatly beneficial for the organisation. This is because it might encourage the involved users to generate dialog for the NPO, and increase user engagement as they might feel like it is beneficial for them and others to support the cause of Welcome to English.
References
Welcome to English (2024) Available at: https://www.welcometoenglish.org/ [Accessed 8/11/24].
Welcome to English (2022) Welcome to English CIC – Kingston upon Hull. Facebook. Available at: https://www.facebook.com/EnglishinHull [Accessed 8/11/24].
GOV.UK (2024) Welcome to English CIC filing history – find and update company information. Service.gov.uk. Available at: https://find-and-update.company-information.service.gov.uk/company/10588117/filing-history [ Accessed 8/11/24].
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