Taal Doet Meer: Designing clarity for multiple audiences

The brief

Taal Doet Meer connects Dutch-speaking volunteers with who want to learn the language. Its website needs to serve three very different groups:

• Existing volunteers looking for projects and events
• New volunteers trying to understand what volunteering involves
• The beneficiaries, needing clear, accessible information in English

During the redesign, usability testing revealed a tension: newer volunteers preferred the new structure, while long-standing volunteers strongly favored the old website. Choosing one over the other would have meant breaking the experience for a core audience.

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The insight

Before completing the website, we advised Taal Doet Meer to conduct structured usability interviews, focusing on first impressions, navigation, and task completion, to understand how users actually experienced the site.

The results showed the issue wasn’t visual design, but cognitive load. Experienced volunteers had memorized the old site and relied on habit. The new navigation disrupted their mental model. New volunteers, without that bias, found the new structure clearer and easier to use.

This insight helped reframe the problem: not which design is better, but how to support different user intentions on the same platform.

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The solution

We ran a card-sorting exercise with both groups. Despite their differences, participants consistently created two clear paths: 1) Becoming a volunteer: expectations, onboarding, next steps; and 2) Being an active volunteer: projects, events, initiatives.

The site already had a clear entry for fundraising, but the part for people considering volunteering wasn't clear enough. We introduced a dedicated section with all the information that can be relevant to people who consider volunteering. The two paths were made clear at menu level, allowing users to immediately choose the path that matched their intent.

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Outcome

By structuring the website around intent-based journeys rather than audience labels, Taal Doet Meer created clear paths for both audiences. The learning is that a website should be built around its audience and that when there are multiple, clarity comes from providing an intentional path to both.

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They were easygoing, and they made us feel comfortable. They took us by the hand and guided us through the process, while still keeping us in charge and listening to our needs.

‍Annelieke Acda - Communications Manager at Taal Doet Meer

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