EPIK assist Gather Digital in creating fully responsive UX for life saving HeroRATs

Non-profit organisations and charities are playing a critical role in our world today. Especially Apopo, who are using mine and tuberculosis detection through the use of trained HeroRats to save lives across African countries Tanzania, Mozambique, Thailand and many others. They are having enormous in pact saving lives, approaching global issues head on in creative and effective ways. The marketing and digital team at Apopo were keen to totally reinvent their dated website, and increase revenue in generating more donations, adoptions and selling gifts.

Client
Apopo

Product
Responsive Website

Collaboration
Gather Digital

Project Timescale
3 months

Involved Teams
Developers 
Visual Designers
 Apopo Stakeholders

Design process

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Research, strategy and analysis

The first necessity was to build a significant understanding of the Apopo organisation and user objectives. Scoping and requirement meetings helped clarify the needs of the redesign, including significant focus on mobile and responsive design. Apopo required a complete overhaul of marketing pages, account management areas, and key donation related user journeys that would increase donations.

Competitor analysis

Apopo are a unique organisation and thus have no direct competitors. However the ploys and methods used by other leading charities were closely evaluated. A vast understanding of the digital activities of these charities gave us the opportunity to plan and strategise a unique appraoch for Apopo that would have particular influence in eCommerce journeys and user account management areas.

Information architecture

After the UX strategy was presented to the team at Apopo it was clear the content should be a focus for the project. Working alongside content teams a new information architecture was designed through content audits and card sorting. These tasks better organised the existing information and highlighted opportunities for new content that would altogether vastly improve the User Experience.

Wireframing and Prototyping

The design production for the project was significant, with large amounts of information to plan and rearrange. An atomic design method where key website components and elements were designed carefully and in a controlled way. This would allows these components to be easily used throughout web development and speeded up website coding. All screens were created specially to 3 breakpoints with a mobile-first approach. Handover notes and functional documentation guided the visual design and front-end development.

“The opportunity to work on such an inspiring and unique project was fantastic. Apopo are a beautiful organisation that are truly making a huge difference in the world. My work alongside Gather Digital would better improve the donation and adoption amounts for HeroRats, ultimately contributing to reducing landmines and tuberculosis across Africa. Considering the role Apopo play in the world today, this remains my favourite project to date, and it was an absolutely pleasure to work with the Apopo team.”

Martin Fletcher, UX Designer, EPIK