International Justice Mission is a global nonprofit organization that fights against various forms of human trafficking and modern-day slavery by working with governments to strengthen their criminal justice systems.

IJM built its presence in the Philippines in 2001 and has grown to a team of over 100. I joined the Philippines team in mid-2021. In 2023 we embarked on a major overhaul of our website.

The problem: outgrowing our web platform

Our website—at the time—was created by a 3rd party vendor. It was a rigid, difficult-to-customize platform that we had clearly outgrown. With every month that we were billed hefty monthly fees for the maintenance and the use of a server, our frustration over the platform grew.

A barrier to connecting with our audience

There was also much room for improvement in terms of how IJM's work was communicated. “It's hard to understand what you do,” some readers have told us. The complexities of our work against trafficking, particularly the online sexual exploitation of children, were overwhelming to newcomers. Even I, when I joined in 2021, felt that the formality and technical jargon of the industry created a barrier between me, the reader, and the organization I was trying to learn more about.

Our Philippine office’s online presence was nearly invisible, buried under a subdomain of the U.S. headquarters' site. There was no clear call to action, just a clutter of buttons leading to pages that promised more information.

A communication mismatch

With the existing limitations, we could not adjust the website to capture the essence of our work nor do justice to the advances our teams were making in the mission. The user experience was more convoluted than necessary—too many clicks, too many links, too much effort for readers to grasp the basics. The CMS (content management system) left us with little to no customization, and six-item menu was a fixed feature.
‍
Things like locked type settings and poorly typeset templates were a disservice to our brand. The page templates didn't achieve the look and feel that reflected the professionalism that the IJM team offered to its partners.

The solution: a website overhaul

There was no doubt that we needed a complete overhaul. But with our resources on hand, could we do it? It was urgent not just because of the communication needs. There was a financial goal as well, to help IJM cut expenses.
‍
Ordinarily this challenge would have been close to impossible. Securing the right third party provider could potentially take months. But we had someone in our organization—an IJM lawyer by day, a self-taught programmer by night—who had been learning to code. He happened to be my brother, Lawrence. And he was eager to take on the challenge of coding the new site.

Ready, set, sprint!

And so we embarked on this exciting project—to create a platform that truly reflected who we were and the impact of our work, our team’s dynamism, passion, creativity, and desire to grow. The project became more than a task—it was the beginning of a new chapter for IJM’s communication branch, one that would finally do justice to the incredible work happening in the transformation of our criminal justice system.

On the left is the home page design for desktop and mobile, which presents the problem of the crime and IJM's solution in a way that is easy for first-time readers to grasp. On the right, is the Partnerships section, an important addition, as it is through partners and through a united effort that the crime of online sexual exploitation of children can be effectively addressed.

Creating the user experience for International Justice Mission Philippines’ stakeholders and website visitors

simplifying structure, language, and our work process

Simplifying the site architecture would reduce the reader’s cognitive load. Unnecessary top-level menu items and CTA buttons were removed, allowing a clear hierarchy to emerge.
To make sure readers would not be overwhelmed, the introductory information throughout the home page was re-organized and information is now delivered in digestible chunks, in simple language. The home page gives the reader the big picture. Various dimensions of the work are then tackled more deeply in the nested sections. These will be explored by those who’ve already gained familiarity via the home page, or are frequent visitors.
Our process was simple as well. We didn’t have the luxury of following the typical UX design process. Instead, our creation process was based on how a user would likely experience the website. So first, the home page was our focus, followed by the section pages and sub-pages. Our team of 3 collaborated remotely but closely. Figma was our digital Headquarters, where we would see each others’ icons moving around the canvas and feel each others’ presence (and read each others’ comments). Design and coding were happening in parallel, in a way that allowed us to maximize the available time to try, test, and fail sooner than later.

A comparison of the previous site map an the new one. The previous site map featured a fixed six-item main menu and four above the fold CTA buttons. The simplified site map has 4 main menu items and one main CTA button, and a standard button for reporting exploitation.

making a difficult subject relevant and engaging

The revamped site creates meaningful experiences by focusing on what our audience—current and prospective mission partners—would care about:
For prosecutors, access to valuable resource material.
For media partners, key information all in one place and easy to find.
For corporate and church partners, the sense of unity and camaraderie from the documentation of key milestones.
For new visitors, a simplified introduction and invitation to the mission of child protection.
One of the things not present in our former site was the timeline of IJM's history in the Philippines. Instead of showing a typical timeline, the site's Our Work page features an easy-to-read interactive timeline of highlights and milestones, supplemented by a 1-minute video that encapsulates the journey of IJM in the Philippines and its achievements in supporting the criminal justice system.

The Our Work page, a new addition to the site, which shows highlights of more than two decades of IJM's work in the Philippines. On the right is the Meet Our Leaders page, using a card system that expands when clicked, to show each leader's write-up, and collapses back when the bottom-facing chevron (arrow) is clicked again.

delivering a clear, compelling narrative

How IJM’s work is communicated is crucial for growing partnerships and support for this important mission. IJM is an non-governmental organization involved in highly collaborative work that scales and expands through partnerships.
The site seeks to fuel partnerships through brand storytelling. Storytelling is one of the ways to keep supporters up-to-date and motivated. Their sense of excitement and fulfillment is sustained when they regularly see what their contributions have made possible.
As the brand’s stories are told, the brand's authority and credibility grows. And new people get connected with, and interested in, the work of child protection.
The revamped site projects a clear call-to-action and expectation of what IJM wants visitors to do: take part in the mission.
The site makes IJM’s whole-of-society approach evident, as it demonstrates close partnership with government agencies, churches, corporations, the media, (and everyone willing to give something of themselves to this area of child protection). The message is that combining our resources and efforts and working in unity is the best chance we have to beat this technology-enabled crime and the perpetrators and abusers who use mainstream tech and social media platforms for their perverted purposes.
IJM’s visible expertise in its work against the online sexual exploitation of children builds the brand as an authority in the space.

The news page divided into three sections: Latest updates (IJM content), In the news (IJM featured in news channels), and Press releases, which are pdf files for media partners to download easily. On the right is a sample page of a news article. The narrow width of the desktop article helps readability.

Three Big Wins

1. a clear focus on partnerships

User feedback from the previous website showed that the home page required an overwhelming number of unnecessary decision-making (and with that, cognitive load for the reader) due to multiple buttons and complex information. The new homepage condensed and simplified the details to communicate the crime, how to address it, and leads to a clear call to action.

2. from technical to accessible

The former site was primarily aimed at government partners and used highly technical wording because of the technical nature of much of the work. The new site leans towards simpler and less technical language because it is important that each stakeholder finds value for themselves in the site, whether a donor, a first-time visitor, a student doing research, a news reporter, or a government partner.

The storytelling engages the heart and mind and appeals to the shared desire to see people who are vulnerable rescued, and justice done.

The website is equipped to showcase IJM’s thought leadership and make IJM’s solutions easily accessible.

Partner groups are honored and spotlighted in all sections of the site.

3. freedom to innovate

The new site provided IJM Philippines with its own cost-effective customizable platform for narrative building.
‍
Shifting to a new platform enabled us to adopt the highest security requirements, while having full ownership and control of content and data.

This sprint gave our team the satisfaction of meeting major stretch goals: maximizing in-house resources to innovate, solve problems, and learn new technologies and platforms.

This change has helped IJM stay at the forefront of developments in web communication, a must for a brand that is fighting a tech-based crime with many different technologies.

The Resource page design, patterned after popular content browsing systems that are intuitive to today's users, makes searching for IJM-authored resources easy and engaging.

What's next?

After the 3-month sprint, we managed to launch a site with the essential pages, and continue improving and innovating in the months that followed, at a much more sustainable pace.
We also started a quarterly newsletter as a means to stay in touch with our community and keep our stories visible.
When we worked on the site, accessibility was unfortunately not a priority back then. Now it is one of our ongoing upgrades to the site. I completed a very comprehensive course on website accessibility at the Interaction Design Foundation (IxDF). There’s a lot to do! But we’ve started a rhythm of sharing and implementing accessibility best practices, learning as we go.

Doing Justice to the Organization's Impact