Nielsen Norman Group Releases a New Study of Nonprofit Web sites and Estimates that Organizations Could Double Online Donations

"We uncovered several donation killers that caused some of the charities to lose out," said usability expert Jakob Nielsen, principal of Nielsen Norman Group. "Were they to fix these turn-off factors, we estimate that they could easily double donations."

The turn-off factors were nearly equally divided between poor page design (47 percent) and unclear content (53%). Usability issues relating to page and site design included cluttered pages and confusing workflow, and in 17 percent of the cases, users simply could not find where to donate. Content issues centered on unclear information, missing information and confusing terms.