About the project

In 2016 I was approached by a friend and asked for help with the website of a very special Fellowship he belonged to - polish speaking Alcoholics Anonymous in Ireland. It is a branch of a worldwide group of people who meet together and help each other facing deadly illness - alcoholism. They cope with it through sharing strength, hope and experience as well as work on 12 step program.

See website in 2015

Foundation Building

Problem statement

  • The current website is outdated
  • Users complained about accessing information on mobile devices
  • Doesn't provide much information and attract newcomers
  • Many AA members didn't find website useful PROJECT CONSTRAINTS
  • Difficulty in finding needed information

Defining mission statement

Help spreading information about polish speaking AA meetings in Ireland and AA as a whole among all alcoholics who still suffer and have access to internet. 



Problem statement

  • The website, managed by changing AA members every two years, accommodates varying levels of tech familiarity among its overseers.
  • Users include those with limited internet signal and beginners in online navigation.
  • Adhering to AA's 12 traditions, the website design aligns with principles such as attraction over promotion, no opinion on external issues, and upholding anonymity.
  • Despite the absence of AA design style guides, design freedom is constrained to a range of colors and fonts used in AA publications, as each group has autonomy in such matters.
  • Hosted on Jimdo for cost-effectiveness and user-friendliness, the website faces limitations in modifying structure and appearance due to the platform's constraints.

Comparing with similar websites

The websites as seen between 2016-2017
alcoholicsanonymous.ie
aa.org
aa.org.pl

User research

Web Analytics of old site

There are about 10 users visiting daily (380 a month), viewing about 3 pages daily in average (30 a month). The uptrend in spring 2014 is related to launching 1st version of the page - views mostly by 1 or 2 users. 



Surveying visitors



Key takeaways from interviews with users of the original website.

HIGHLIGHTS FROM INTERVIEWs WEBSITE USERS

Participant 1 - “The most important is the schedule of the meetings, where, when and how to get there - this seems to be missing”

Participant 2 - “I didn’t find anything interesting in there. All information I need I get from friends, leaflets and literature.”

Participant 3 - “I think there is too much information” 

The very striking difference in number of visitors of home page and the subpage about AA meetings - about 8-fold. This definitely doesn’t serve meeting the main goal. All other subpages are related to more information about AA and personal stories. 

Defining Persona

User journey

1st UI design iteration & launching prototype

Usability testing and further reasearch

Test objectives

  • Check if users find that they were looking for
  • Check if the list of meetings meet user expectations
  • Check if the website motivates user to attend the meetings
  • Observe how users navigate and behave, are they finding what they looked for, any pain points

How?

  • A/B testing
  • Unmoderated Remote Usability Testing
  • Interviews

Testing goal

The goal of this testing is to assess the satisfaction, efficiency of the website. I would like to evaluate if it attracts newcomers to the meetings and serves all information to existing members of the Fellowship.

Web analytics

Translating results into affinity map & proposed solutions


2nd UI design iteration




Crafting final style guide

After the launch

Two years after the website launch, polish-speaking AA in Ireland got inquiries from other polish-speaking regional groups in Europe about creating their websites while others took aairlandia.com as an example for creating their own website ie. aaaustria.com

Since the launch of the website, fellowship members are more involved in adding new content, connecting with other groups in Ireland and linked on technological level. The website still attracts more visitors every quarter as shown above.

Final mockups

Conclusion

Along the way I acquired a tremendous amount of knowledge about AA, met a lot of amazing people and as the effect of that, I created a website which become an example for other websites.

See website in 2015