Embracing digital to help eliminate brain tumours and reduce diagnosis time.

A bespoke solution for a high-growth non profit

We worked with The Charity to develop a bespoke, scalable solution built on the Django framework. This enabled us to go from concept to reality quickly and provided a reliable foundation to integrate all of the functionality they required. The solution catered to multiple device types and offered a completely refreshed design, navigation and information architecture.

A hyper-local experience

The Brain Tumour Charity has areas of location specific content on their website. From fundraising events and activities to local support groups, users can search for services in their region. It wanted to further customise its users experience and provide users with personalised content at their fingertips.

We utilised the comprehensive functionality that Django provides to integrate granular location-based content. This now enables The Charity to direct those suffering from brain tumours to their local support group as soon as they access the website. Similarly, if they wanted to drive attendance at a fundraising event in Scotland, our solution can analyse a users’ device location and IP address to identify those based in Scotland. Tailoring the content in this way, not only provides immediate, relevant support to those suffering with a brain tumour but drives donations with more targeted fundraising marketing.

Working with the data

In 2018, using the persona research, together with SEO and user behaviour insights from Google Analytics and SEMRush, we worked with the in-house Digital Team to construct a user-centric navigation. The navigation mapped against the sequence of information users said they required at each stage of their journey from symptoms through diagnosis and treatment and living day-to-day with the effects of a brain tumour.

Using the personas, we conducted a card sorting exercise with key members of The Charity to determine what information was key for the user to see upon arrival at the homepage. This resulted in a shorter homepage that briefly introduced The Charity, then focussed on the needs of the user. Clear signposting using plain, everyday language that the user could identify with was introduced to guide the user, whether they were worried about symptoms, had received a diagnosis or wanted to help with fundraising. Currently these three pathways have a combined click-through rate of 12% with half of those homepage visitors who clicked identifying with the “I’ve got a brain tumour” pathway. This type of signposting widget is helping the team learn more about their users and deliver relevant content at the appropriate times.

Providing clarity in difficult times

The Brain Tumour Charity supports everyone affected by a brain tumour, however this presented a challenge when managing the website’s content. We created the Jargon Buster: a dictionary of terminology including medical and scientific words. These words are highlighted through the text with short descriptions shown. This not only improves user experience, it alleviates the anxiety and confusion involved with diagnosis.

The results for The Brain Tumour Charity website:

Following the launch of the new website in September 2015, The Charity saw its biggest shift from offline to online donations. Their Christmas appeal traditionally saw 70% of the audience interact offline and only 30% online. However, in 2015, this switched, with 70% donations taking place online.

The website saw significant year on year growth in the following year with 161% increase in sessions and a 140% increase in users. Following the implementation of the new donations platform in September, the charity received an additional £50,000 worth of donations before Christmas. This equates to 200 extra days of brain tumour research or the funding to make 200,000 families 'brain tumour aware' through its HeadSmart campaign.