International Child Art Foundation
Foundation Website Redesign

Overview

ICAF - a nonprofit art organization for children

The International Children’s Art Foundation (ICAF) is a nonprofit arts organization serving children worldwide, reaching over 5 million children across 80 countries. As the organization grew, its website no longer supported its expanding audience, programs, and donation needs.

This project focused on redesigning the foundation’s website to make it easier to navigate, more accessible, and better aligned with user expectations, especially for donors, volunteers, and first-time visitors.

Research

Collecting users’ feedback

To understand user needs, we conducted:

• Competitive review of 3 children’s arts foundation websites

• Survey with 20 participants (students, donors, volunteers, visitors)

Key Insights

Users needed:

• A clear, scroll-based content flow

• Stronger content hierarchy and readability

• Mobile responsiveness

• A simpler donation experience with PayPal integration

• Consistency across pages and interactions

The core issue was not just aesthetics — it was clarity and predictability.

Problem Statement

Users feel confused and overwhelmed due to the inconsistent design and cluttered UI elements on the website

As ICAF expanded globally, the website experience did not keep pace.

Users reported:

• Feeling overwhelmed by cluttered pages

• Difficulty finding key information

• Confusing navigation

• Inconsistent visual patterns across pages

• Friction in the donation process

The lack of hierarchy and consistency increased cognitive load and risked losing new visitors, donors, and volunteers.

Proposed Solution

We reduced cognitive load and improved clarity through navigation redesign, system consistency, and stronger content hierarchy

Our goal was to improve users’ overall satisfaction with the foundation’s website, making it more intuitive and enjoyable to use. 

 As a team, we refined the website and reduced user fatigue by:

• redesigning navigation and donation processes based on user journey mapping

• creating a consistent and predictable design system

• improving and unifying the visual design of the entire website

Redesign and usability testing

Unifying and simplifying the user experience

We translated research insights into structural and visual improvements, focusing on consistency, hierarchy, and clarity across the site.

A major pain point identified was the lack of design consistency and content hierarchy. To address this, we revisited our current site map and created a cohesive style guide and design system that simplified and unified our work further.

We conducted a structured visual and interaction audit to align all pages with the new design system. It was a time to critically look at our current design and update it step-by-step as per the principles of our new design system. Key redesign areas included:

Header

We evaluated components both individually and within the broader system to ensure consistency at scale.

The first of the implemented changes was to fix the existing header for smooth navigation and an easily accessible donate button.

Home page and subpages

Our primary aim was to improve page design, readability, and accessibility.

We achieved this by implementing a unified grid system, enlarging text fonts, and replacing hyperlinks with buttons for better navigation.

We also enhanced text hierarchy by adding meaningful section titles to promote deeper content exploration.

Footer

The original footer was cluttered, confusing users.

Our goal was to simplify it while maintaining its informativeness.

We accomplished this by
reevaluating the content's significance and introducing more white space, creating a clear visual hierarchy.

iteration and Testing

Repeated testing cycles allowed us to better understand user pain points and shape a calmer, more intuitive experience

Consecutive iterations, followed by usability testing conducted with 7 participants allowed our team to dig deeper and approach each of the users’ problems with a greater level of empathy. As a result, the final design improvement came to life, addressing some of their most burning needs.

Testing helped us:

• Identify remaining navigation confusion

• Adjust content grouping

• Improve visual clarity and scanning

• Refine interaction patterns

Final Design

Previous homepage

Current design

Summary

Outcome & Impact

After launch, the redesign showed measurable improvements:

• 78% of users reported easier navigation after launch

• 20% increase in website traffic (Google Analytics)

• 15% growth in donations in early post-launch period

The redesign helped the foundation better support its mission and reach more children and supporters.

What I Learned

• Consistency reduces cognitive load more than visual polish alone

• Small hierarchy changes can dramatically improve comprehension

• Designing for nonprofits requires balancing emotion, clarity, and trust

• Research insights must directly inform structural decisions