Irise International

Irise are a non-profit organisation working to educate and de-stigmatise menstruation for young women and girls in the U.K and East Africa in the form of educational programs, advocacy and funding circular business models for menstrual health products in East Africa (EasyPad).

Irise wanted to increase donations and the number of volunteers to their UK and East Africa programs on their website. The majority of their volunteers came through engagement on their Facebook page and University engagement programs, and donations came mostly through university-led fund-raising and government grants.

Defining the outcomes

I clarified outcomes further with Irise during a kick-off meeting,
they wanted a re-brand and website that would:

• Clearly illustrate Irise's purpose
• Encourage participation/volunteers
• Help Irise meet their fund-raising targets

Defining deliverables

A general scope for deliverables was also decided upon with the stakeholders:

• A new style guide
• A new logo
• Designs and wireframes for a new landing page

Research context

To better research Irise's core offering, mission and impact on the community and practice empathy, I spent 3 weeks in Walakuba, Uganda at Irise's 'Easypad' community project. Irise work to provide menstrual health education and establish funding for a circular business model run by and for the locals, producing 'Easypads', where leftover cotton material from factories nearby to produce re-usable, affordable pads and kits.

Research objectives

• Clearly illustrate Irise's purpose

I identified 2 key areas of Irise's core offering/impact that weren't being communicated and gathered research and content:
1. stories from workers and students who benefit from the programs
2. the 'Easypad' model, it's circular process and benefits

After better understanding Irise's programs and work contextually, the next step to clearly illustrate Irise's purpose was to define with stakeholders and participants:

• What is Irise's main purpose?
• What is Irise is doing to achieve it?

Research conducted

• Photo documentation
• Contextual inquiry
• 48 surveys
• 9 interviews of 'Easypad' team
• 5 interviews of girls from the education program

I then held 3 workshops intended to define Irise's purpose and what they were doing to achieve it, to determine what we wanted to communicate to users about Irise.

Workshop "What is Irise's main purpose?"

Process

2 workshops. The 1st from the Walakuba program (14 girls 2 teachers), 2nd with UK and East Africa leadership stakeholders

Participants brain-dumped negative cliches around periods, then set about defining what they think Irise is and will achieve, affinity mapping from the 1st workshop to inform the 2nd workshop's outcome

Outcome

Irise's main purpose is to end period stigma

Workshop "What is Irise doing to achieve it (end period stigma)?"

Process

8 members of the UK and East Africa team and leadership board devised targets that each project Irise undertakes should meet based on the previous workshop.

Outcome

Each project Irise undertakes should...

1. Educate
2. Empower and
3. (create) Enterprise

As part of refreshing Irise's identity, I also created a style guide including a new logotype and icon set from scratch.

What guided the new visual identity

• Competitor analysis and the cliches exercise from prior workshops helped determine imagery to avoid.

• "Free", survey responses from girls used bright and uplifting words around the possibilities created by Irise, not shame.

• I incorporated it into the logotype and illustrations in the form of a cloud, rising above shame. The icons and imagery focus on education, achievement and girls supporting one another.

• I made the logotype more practical for rural Uganda's printing resources, using simpler lines to make it easier for painting/printing.

• Clearly illustrate Irise's purpose

Irise needed a better way to raise awareness and funnel donations on the web and a quick, effective way to communicate Irise's purpose, and a landing page that tied in with the core mission and vision of Irise that won't operate only in Uganda but in the U.K and beyond.

Using the outcome of the 2 workshops held to clarify Irise's main purpose "end period stigma" to create a strong tagline:
"It's time to take a stand against period stigma"

• Clearly illustrate Irise's purpose

From user testing of Irise's old landing page, the objectives of Irise weren't clear enough to users looking to find out more. Potential donors and fundraisers needed a clear, succinct overview of Irise's mission and their targets as an organisation.
From the brain-storming workshop with the UK and Africa team, Irise devised 3 Targets that each project Irise undertakes should meet at least one of these goals:

1. Educate 2. Empower and 3. Enterprise.

How do we make sure they don't just end up as internal buzzwords? The targets are then elaborated upon underneath to the actions Irise take.

• Encourage participation/volunteers
• Help Irise meet their fund-raising targets

The previous site had options to volunteer and donate hidden away in the menu.
The landing page needed components with clear calls to action for the different ways to donate (Buddy, Monthly) or volunteer (becoming an ambassador, advocacy, upcoming events). I used photographs I took of students during my time at the project in Walakuba and icons I illustrated to give a better indication of the sections content.

• Encourage participation/volunteers
Visitors on the site needed to see exactly what Irise are doing right now and how they can get involved.

For what Irise do:
A current project segment was created to see an overview of all of Irise's current active projects in the UK and Africa, where they can click through to deep-dive into each project and get more information on involvement.

For what visitors can do:
Call to actions with illustration let visitors know the variety of fundraising options and programs like ambassadorship they can get involved with. Upcoming events are there to get people aware of the events they can jump into immediately in their area.