My four years at the University of Maryland were rich, and, now that I find myself in a personal and professional place that is rewarding in so many ways, what isn’t credited to my family and friends goes to my college education. The list is long, but one of the treasures I took away was a degree in journalism that landed me one of the industry’s most sought-after jobs, the first stop on a path that took me on a wild adventure.
So when the Philip Merrill College of Journalism came knocking with a glossy and gorgeous -if flawed - pitch for the college’s new home, Knight Hall, I was ready to open my wallet. Now I’m not endowing a chair or anything, but I understand the impact of philanthropy and would like to make a meaningful commitment to the place that gave me so much.
In addition to offering a mail-back pledge form, the brochure tells me that I can save a stamp by giving online. Of course! Brilliant! Simple, and easy for me to do immediately at the moment when I feel most engaged and ready to act. What do I find at www.knighthall.umd.edu/give?
“The customized giving form for the building campaign will be online later this week. In the meantime, please use the University’s online giving page to make your donation.”
And there, I am blocked, no longer interested in making my gift.
I am only critical of this effort because I care about this school and want nothing but to see its success. But this basic-level appeal is flawed in so many ways, ignoring general tenets of Web usability practice in conjunction with this level of fundraising.
First, why would the school send out a brochure that apparently took a significant amount of time and money before the online giving form is ready? Fixing that e-form should take very little effort. The school looks very disorganized and incompetent with this minor failure, but if I’m considering giving them my money and, at that very moment, am prepared to do so, I’m less likely to do so if it’s not easy to use the tool and if the potential steward of my money seems to not have it together.
Second, when I click on the University’s giving page, I am overwhelmed by the e-form copy, and annoyed that I have to remember what they tell me is the jargony “appeal code” -PTYA8. As a potential donor, I am quickly turned off by these extra arduous steps that are asked of me.
Of course, I have only the highest hopes for this effort. But as a steward of the college’s name, I think we need to do be doing better from the outset to ensure success.
Usability is the new customer service.
Good insight, Bob. A few weeks ago I went to a very expensive “usability” conference put on by one of these proprietary Web think tanks, and what they taught - engage in user testing from the outset and use what you learn about how users navigate and trip up and stumble over your application - to guide creation, seems intuitive and basic.
But for some reason, most stuff we see on the Web doesn’t have that basic customer-oriented approach. I wonder why that is?
Way to throw down w/ the usability insights, Nora!
What’s really crazy is when this kind of design thinking start to infect the rest of you life — you’re using the ATM and suddenly go “wait, why is this so badly designed?” — next it’s your car’s A/C controls — then your cell phone — then your wrench — ack!
I couldn’t agree with you more, Nora. And today is June 9! Nothing about the website has been fixed because I just had exactly the same experience.
You’re right - that is atrocious. I just went back to see if I can make my gift, and the whole site is down with no way for me to make my gift. Melinda, were we at school together?