In today’s tech environment, user experience design for nonprofits has become a top priority for high performing nonprofit websites. The list of innovative design trends is long, but if you are a nonprofit, you are most likely in a position that requires you to stretch your budget. Which innovations will bring you the best ROI?

Here are three to consider in the near future to remain relevant and effective in building support online.

Humanizing the Digital Experience

Increasingly, people are demanding that their digital devices interact with them as any other human being. Designers are integrating artificial intelligence (AI) and natural language processing (NLP) to deliver on these expectations.

For profit organizations see this as a way to higher conversions and more sales. As a nonprofit, humanizing the user experience will help relate your message to the person’s emotions. The way a person feels about the interaction with your website can have a big influence on whether they become emotionally invested in your mission.

Website designers now focus on humanizing their website interactions with NLP in order to satisfy fundamental human needs, including transparency, trust, and security (all of which are also key considerations in responsibly building a nonprofit data culture). Recently on the Salesforce blog, Dr Vivienne Ming highlighted how some non-profits are using AI to accomplish this user experience design objective.

Using Voice-Activated Interface

Design trends are continuing to move away from clicks and taps to the domain of Voice-Activated Interfaces (VAI). There have been launches across an array of technologies: Alexa for Amazon, Cortana for Microsoft, OK Google for Google, and Siri for Apple, to name just a few. This impacts user experience design for nonprofits in the future.

The rapid advancement of voice-activated capabilities shows us that this technology will likely be a primary alternative or a complete replacement to the conventional graphic user interface. Gartner predicted that voice-activated interfaces would account for a 30 per cent increase in revenue for online businesses by 2018. It’s likely that interaction with nonprofit websites will also follow this trend. Imagine someone asking, “Alexa, how can I make a donation to help people hurt by Hurricane Florence?” Nonprofit websites equipped to handle VAI could see an influx of donations.

This technology will most likely live alongside graphic interfaces for the near future, and this is for three reasons. First, voice input may not always be an appropriate option. Privacy issues may demand graphic interface as an option. Second, technology does need some improvements in the conversational elements of the systems. Third, not all information is best conveyed by voice. Stories and data visualization, videos, and imagery are all highly compelling content that is invisible in voice interaction.

Implementing Smart User Experience Features

Today’s most successful apps and websites offer more than highly relevant information in an easy to navigate design. They offer an intuitive experience that minimizes friction and saves people time. People want a design that guides them quickly to their goal, and time-saving, clean designs help them accomplish those objectives. Clean design enables a person to take a minimum number of steps from the moment they visit a site or install an app up to the moment they take action.

Typically, this type of user experience design for nonprofits includes the following elements:

Guidance. This can come in a variety of forms such as direct suggestions to charming nudges, which are small rewards that can influence the person’s behaviour in the desired way.

Context. This is the specific information and features that deliver a superior experience by providing the most relevant data and features through each step of a person’s journey.

Clean navigation. Clean navigation begins with a well-designed architecture. An investment of your time on even just this one element will pay off well.

Be Aware of Options and Choose What You Can Use

As with many trends in technology today, some come and go quickly. Others remain popular and go on to become necessities. Even though you may not be able to adopt a wide array of new tools, by adding in the most relevant innovations, your message will stay on track to creating more conversions and leading to more supporters

Thinking about the future of your nonprofit website? Talk to me. I’ll be happy to talk ideas and let you know my ideas on what’s coming up. Email: tim@timadesanya.com