Irish Wildlife Trust

This self-initiated redesign looks at the Irish Wildlife Trust website, with a focus on making IWT’s valuable work clearer and helping people understand how they can get involved. The aim was to create a more connected journey from learning about conservation to finding a meaningful way to support Irish wildlife.

View Figma prototype

Duration

July - August 2026

Role

Solo UI/UX Designer

#ux_audit

#comparative_research

#information architecture

#ui_design

#prototyping

BRIEF

Caring about wildlife is one thing. Knowing how to help is another.

Wildlife is worth protecting, and the Irish Wildlife Trust already does a lot of work to bring awareness to conservation.

Their site aims to highlight Ireland’s wildlife and the issues affecting it, but I felt there was an opportunity to help the user follow through their journey in supporting the good cause.

If you have decided to get involved, it needs to be easy for you to know what IWT is doing and how you could contribute meaningfully.

That became the main idea behind this project: if someone cares enough to want to help, how can we support their journey to getting involved?

AUDIT

I followed the moments where interest was meant to turn into action.

I followed the main routes into volunteering, events, donations and membership, paying attention to what visitors knew before they were asked to make a decision.

The same gaps kept appearing:

IWT talks about the work it does, but someone thinking about donating, joining or volunteering doesn’t see many concrete results at the point where they’re asked to take part.

A donation takes you to iDonate, membership buttons lead to a form further down the page, and volunteering ends with “check back later.” A little more explanation would help people know what to expect.

There are plenty of ways to get involved. The homepage cards and Get Involved page could do more to explain what each option is for and help someone find the right starting point.

The membership steps run together, its buttons are difficult to read, and the events page puts a long archive beneath the upcoming event. Clearer formatting would make the important details easier to find.

I did not have access to IWT’s analytics or users, so I treated these as design hypotheses rather than proven usability findings.

COMPARATIVE RESEARCH

How conservations make action feel like part of the story.

I looked at a couple other organisations to see their user journey.

WWF often explains an issue, shows what is being done and then offers a way to help. The action feels like a continuation of the content rather than a separate request.

Alveus Sanctuary uses individual animal stories as a way into wider conservation topics. Telling the story behind their work gives people something grounded to connect with, rather than asking them to care about conservation as an abstract idea.

Both made the journey towards supporting wildlife feel more deliberate. That became the opportunity for IWT: make their work feel more tangible through stronger visual storytelling, more context behind an action and clearer evidence of impact, so users can move naturally from understanding the issue to supporting it.

PERSONA

Seeing IWT through Sadbh's eyes.

Sadhbh already cares about Irish wildlife, and she doesn’t need convincing that it matters. What she needs is a clearer sense of what IWT has already done, and how she can have a role in that.

When that picture is easier to see, supporting IWT feels less like a vague next step and more like a meaningful way to take part in protecting Irish nature.

DESIGN DIRECTION

I turned my findings into a set of design principles.

From my identified gaps and Sadbh's profile, I pulled out a set of design directions to guide the redesign.

Show how membership, donations, volunteering and campaigns support the organisation and wildlife.

Connect support to real outcomes

Make it clear which conservation area is ongoing, and how people’s support contributes to IWT's work over time.

Build trust through transparency

Use clearer hierarchy, stronger visual cues, and more consistent UI patterns so people can scan to move through the site more easily.

Make the interface feel easier to explore

Make projects, campaigns, events, and ways to help feel like parts of one connected story.

Create stronger continuity between content types

WIREFRAMES AND PROTOTYPES

Turning the direction into structure.

I used low- and mid-fidelity wireframes to work through the order of the content. Evidence of impact moved closer to calls to action. Ways of helping were grouped together. Membership options appeared before the form, and the chosen option carried into it.

Working without the finished visual style made it easier to concentrate on those relationships. Once the sequence made sense, I moved into the final interface and reusable components.

DESIGN SYSTEM

Creating a more consistent experience.

What I found

The site used several ways to organise similar content. Get Involved relied on a text list, Reserves used basic links, Events placed full details into one long page, while News used shorter previews. Calls to action also shifted between labels such as "Read More", "Join Today" and "Click Here".

What I changed

I created shared patterns for cards, calls to action, typography, spacing, impact figures, forms and selected states.

The pages can still serve different purposes, but now feel like parts of the same organisation.

why this solution

Consistency through familiar layouts and interactions are easier to recognise and use across different pages. Reusable patterns would also help IWT publish new events, campaigns and content without designing each page from scratch.

01 / HOMEPAGE

Bringing IWT’s work and impact into the first visit.

What I found

The homepage introduced IWT and offered several routes into the site, but its impact and participation options did not form a clear sequence.

What I changed

I restructured the page to move from IWT’s purpose, to evidence of its work, to the different ways someone could help.

Impact figures appear earlier, while each participation route now includes a short explanation instead of relying on a button label alone. Wildlife photography also plays a stronger role in introducing the content.

why this solution

People use the surrounding context of a link to judge whether it will lead somewhere useful; a principle known as information scent! 🐻Giving each action more of this context helps users understand before clicking.

Showing IWT’s impact first also answers why someone might help before asking them to do so.

scroll inside the screen to see more!

Before

After

02 / GET INVOLVED

Making an existing overview easier to scan.

What I found

The page already introduced five ways to get involved. Each had a short explanation, but they were arranged as a long text list with little visual separation.

This made the options look quite similar, even though they were intended for different people and involved different kinds of participation. Repeated links such as “Find out more here” also gave little indication of what would happen next.

What I changed

I kept the page as an overview, but gave each route its own visual card with a clearer title, a shorter description and relevant wildlife imagery.

This makes each option feel like a distinct choice rather than another item in the same list. I also surfaced participation figures to give a more tangible sense of the community already involved in IWT’s work.

why this solution

People tend to scan webpages before reading them closely. Separating the routes into clear visual groups should make it easier to notice the differences between them and compare the options.

The combination of a descriptive title, short explanation and relevant image also gives users more clues about what they will find after clicking. This should make choosing a suitable route require less guesswork.

Before

After

03 / VOLUNTEER AND EVENTS

Showing the different levels of participation.

What I found

When no roles are available, the volunteering page ends by asking people to check back later. The events page has the opposite problem: upcoming events, past events and webinars sit together in one long list.

What I changed

I added volunteer stories and other ways to stay involved, so the page remains useful without open roles. Events now use shorter previews with key details upfront, while past webinars have their own section.

why this solution

When there are no opportunities available, offering another relevant step is more useful than simply asking people to return later.

For events, keeping key details in consistent places makes them easier to scan and compare. Short previews give people enough information to decide what interests them, with the full details available when needed.

Before

After

04 / DONATION

Understanding where a donation goes.

What I found

The existing donation page explains several ways to give. However, it says little about where that support goes, so the page focuses more on the payment methods than their impact.

What I changed

I added examples of the conservation work donations support before the form. The main donation form is embedded on the page, while alternative methods remain available beside it.

why this solution

Before donating, people generally want to understand what an organisation does and where their money will go. Showing this first should make the decision feel better informed. Keeping the donation form on the page creates a more direct path into donating compared to redirecting to external services.

Before

After

05 / MEMBERSHIP

Proving the value behind a membership.

What I found

The reasons to become a member appeared after the membership types, so visitors were asked to choose before fully understanding the benefits.

What I changed

I moved the benefits to the top of the page, then presented the membership benefits as an interactive card (hovering reveals IWT magazine covers - a benefit included)! Then the available membership options are displayed, selecting an option takes users to the form with their choice already filled in.

why this solution

This follows a simple decision-making principle: give people enough value and context before asking them to follow through. Carrying their choice into the form also reduces cognitive load and keeps the journey consistent.

Before

After

REFLECTION

This project changed what I pay attention to when redesigning a content-heavy website.

I went into the project expecting to spend most of my time on how the website looked. Instead, I spent a lot of it moving things around, cutting things back and working out what was important to people wanting to support the animals and our world.

This project reminded me that improving a page does not always mean adding more. Sometimes, simply changing when information appears can make a decision much easier. Not the most glamorous lesson, but probably the most useful one.

As this was a self-led project, the next step would be testing it with people unfamiliar with IWT and seeing where my decisions hold up. I would pay particular attention to hesitation, wrong turns and whether the relationship between the impact and the action feels as clear to visitors.

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