Oxfam Aotearoa Website Refresh

Oxfam is a world-wide development organisation that mobilises the power of people against poverty. Oxfam Aotearoa (previously known as Oxfam New Zealand) plays a vital role in this work.

In 2021, Oxfam Aotearoa partnered with OSKY to assist in increasing public participation and support. Together both organisations focused on improving their website by making it friendlier through changes in branding, easier to navigate, simpler to donate and allow shortcuts and easy familiarity for returning visitors.

This partnership was born when Oxfam Aotearoa reached out to Osky through our website to seek advice and guidance.

Challenges and Solution

Oxfam Aotearoa’s quite rightly consider their website to be their most important communication tool. Recognising they needed to focus on their digital presence, Oxfam Aotearoa looked at redesigning the site. However, the changes were purely cosmetic and didn’t focus on improving the user experience.

They really wanted to bring more people to the site, stay on the site and feel good about getting involved in the many facets of the great work that Oxfam Aotearoa do.

Engaging as many people as possible through a really strong digital first presence helps Oxfam Aotearoa to reach their goal for a world where everyone, everywhere can not only survive, but thrive. Through the project OSKY looked to:

• Improve brand equity and online reach through branded storytelling and refreshed brand aesthetic.
• Improve site architecture and navigation to enable easier browsing and a more frictionless experience.
• Create a more accessible campaign section through intuitive search filters.
• Reorganise and expand the current News & Events for more accessible browsing and searching.
• Maintain and build on SEO foundations to increase search engine traffic and drive future growth.
• Implement a fully responsive solution backed by WordPress CMS.

Features

• A streamlined donation process through redesign. The process makes it very simple to make a donation either recurring or one off. If the user is familiar with the site then a preselected list of appeals is available to enable a quick donation process.
• Major changes to the homepage to draw people to get involved from the start. Considering the user experience OSKY made major changes to the homepage make choices very simple.
• A great design and branding changes to make the site look more “organic” and hand drawn, allowing the site to seem much more friendly, approachable and down-to-earth.
• A drastic reduction in clicks There now less clicks to get the public involved in donations, petitions and volunteering.
• A lot more upfront information about where funds get spent and the real on the ground effectiveness of public donations and purchasing of gifts.
• Mobile Responsive WCAG 2.1 AA site.

Outcome

Oxfam Aotearoa as a leading charity in New Zealand has to live up to high expectations with its new website. Their new custom WordPress website boasts a more engaging user experience, clearer navigation, and it’s significantly easier for their supporters to donate. Their campaigns are a more prominent offering, and their vast content library is easier to search and browse. The site is a much better testament to Oxfam’s value as a positive force for change in New Zealand, the pacific region and around the world.