Plavio Uganda
Project Year
2024
WebSite
www.planforthevillages.org
Client
HoneOkello Augustine Kezzy-Founder
Industry
NGO Uganda Africa
About Plavio Uganda
Plavio Uganda is a Christian NGO based in Lira City, Uganda, dedicated to transforming lives through spiritual growth, education, economic empowerment, gender equality, climate resilience, and community development. With programs that span vocational training for women, psychosocial support for the elderly, and discipleship projects grounded in storytelling, Plavio’s work impacts thousands across Northern Uganda.
My Role
As a volunteer UX/UI designer, I designed their website using Figma with a clear mission: the goal of this design was to create a human-centered, mobile-first experience that makes it easy for donors, partners, and local communities to understand the NGO’s mission and take meaningful action.
This was a self-initiated volunteer project, and my responsibilities covered the full scope of the design process:
- UX/UI Design: I restructured the website to be intuitive and mobile-friendly, ensuring it worked even in low-bandwidth areas.
- Content Architecture: Organized vast information about programs, leadership, and impact into digestible sections with clear navigation.
- Visual Identity: I created custom visuals with Leonardo AI to reflect Ugandan culture, community life, and dignity.
- Web Strategy: Advised on how to position Plavio’s impact for donors and potential partners, emphasizing transparency and human-centered narratives.
I collaborated remotely with the NGO’s leadership, making design choices that honor both the organization’s faith-driven mission and its diverse audience.
The Challenge
Visual Storytelling
The Challenge
Visual Storytelling
Plavio’s old website had valuable information but lacked coherence, structure, and modern appeal. Key challenges included:
- Overwhelming text-heavy content: With no clear hierarchy, users struggled to understand the organization’s impact.
- Lack of visual storytelling: The site had few emotional cues to help users connect to the mission or feel compelled to support.
- Unclear call-to-actions: Visitors weren’t guided toward donating, volunteering, or contacting the team.
- Limited usability: The design was not optimized for mobile, a major limitation considering many users in Uganda access the internet via phones.
My challenge was to create a visual language and user journey that felt both professional and approachable, deeply rooted in African identity and spiritual purpose.
As part of the visual revitalization, I recognized that Plavio Uganda’s existing photo assets didn’t fully capture the spiritual and cultural vibrance of their mission. To enhance the emotional tone of the site and bridge visual gaps where photography was limited, I generated a suite of bespoke illustrations using Leonardo AI.
Plavio Uganda Imagery
The existing photo library couldn’t carry the cultural and spiritual weight of Plavio’s mission. I prompted, art-directed, and curated a series of bespoke illustrations using Leonardo AI — refining hundreds of generations down to ten that captured the rhythm of community life across Northern Uganda.
User Research & Personas
Working within the constraints of a remote volunteer collaboration with limited access to on-the-ground users, I employed a hybrid research approach combining AI-assisted persona creation with in-depth conversations with Plavio Uganda’s founder. Together we identified three key audience groups: potential international donors and partners, local community members in Northern Uganda, and faith-driven supporters who want to walk alongside Plavio’s mission.
Using these insights, I created three lean personas that captured their goals and constraints—such as needing transparency about where donations go, mobile-first access in low-bandwidth contexts, and simple ways to contact the team. These personas guided decisions around navigation, content hierarchy, and the tone of calls to action.
Grace
The Beneficiary
Bio
Grace recently completed Plavio's vocational tailoring program after dropping out of secondary school. She lives with her mother and three siblings and sews dresses for neighbors. She uses a shared family phone with limited data and reads most comfortably in Acholi.
Goals
- Find other Plavio programs for her family
- Stay connected to Plavio's community
- Share resources with friends
Pain Points
- Text-heavy English-only content
- Slow loading on poor connections
- No clear program-finder for young women
Site Needs
- Visual-first content with icons
- Mobile-first, low-bandwidth performance
- Simple program categories
- Shareable WhatsApp links
I want to know what else Plavio can do for my family — not just what they did for me.
Patrick
The Implementer
Bio
Patrick is a Plavio-trained community leader who runs Bible study groups, vocational workshops, and youth mentoring in his village. He coordinates with Plavio monthly and uses Facebook and WhatsApp daily on a basic smartphone.
Goals
- Direct community members to relevant programs
- Stay current on new Plavio initiatives
- Show Plavio's credibility to elders
Pain Points
- Hard to point people to specific programs
- Information scattered across pages
- No central place for mission and leadership
Site Needs
- Direct-link program pages for WhatsApp
- Clear leadership and faith-foundations section
- News and updates feed
- Print-ready PDFs for offline use
When someone asks me 'what is Plavio?' I need a page I can show them in thirty seconds.
Margaret
The Supporter
Bio
Margaret is a retired teacher and church elder who supports three faith-based NGOs across East Africa. She found Plavio through her church and has donated quarterly for two years. She wants confidence her donations reach real impact.
Goals
- Verify Plavio's transparency and integrity
- See concrete program impact
- Donate easily and recurringly
- Share Plavio's work with her church
Pain Points
- No visible impact reporting
- Donation flow buried in old site
- Few authentic field photos or stories
Site Needs
- Donate button on every page, recurring option
- Impact and stories section
- Transparent leadership and finances
- Clean shareable links
I don't need glossy. I need to know my £40 a month is actually reaching the people on the homepage.
High-Fidelity Wireframes
Once the structure and personas were defined, I translated the new architecture into high‑fidelity wireframes in Figma, focusing on clarity and mobile‑first layouts. The homepage and program pages use a consistent grid and clear calls to action so users can scan quickly and move naturally toward donating, partnering, or getting in touch.
The Design That Delivered
The design was delivered to Plavio Uganda in [Month Year] and is currently being reviewed by the leadership team for staged rollout. While the full site has not yet launched, the design system, persona research, and high-fidelity prototypes are now Plavio’s property to use as fundraising and partnership conversations evolve.
Hon. Okello Augustine Kezzy, Plavio’s founder, called the engagement “truly making an impact both on individual lives and in the community as a whole.”
What I learned
- Volunteering for an NGO at this scale meant designing without on-the-ground research access, which forced me to lean harder on stakeholder interviews and secondary research than I usually would.
- The personas are sharper for being tested against Hon. Okello’s deep field knowledge — but I’d push for at least three remote user interviews next time.
- Designing for low-bandwidth mobile-first audiences in regions with intermittent connectivity is a discipline of its own. Every animation, every web font, every image budget had to be justified.
- AI illustration was the only path to culturally resonant imagery on a zero-budget brief. But it required hundreds of generations and tight art direction to avoid generic “African village” stereotypes. The ten finals are 1% of what was generated.