Sierra Overlook Animal Rescue — Website Optimization
A nonprofit animal sanctuary in California needed help making their website actually work for the people visiting it. Here's what I found, what I changed, and why.
The Problem
Sierra Overlook Animal Rescue (SOAR) is a 501(c)(3) nonprofit in Somerset, California. They take in animals who are elderly, special needs, or just hard to place — the ones other rescues pass on. Their website is how they get donations, find adopters, and recruit volunteers, so when it's confusing to navigate, it directly affects the animals.
The Executive Director reached out for help identifying what wasn't working and fixing it. I came in as a volunteer, reviewed the full site, and built a prioritized plan around her goals.
For clarity, everything below is SOAR’s live Wix site only. I also maintain a separate WordPress practice build (Happy Tails at janechavez.org), which grew from a short WordPress.com experiment into self-hosted WordPress with Elementor—that project is under Work and is not SOAR’s production stack.
Starting With What Actually Matters
I didn't jump straight into making things look different. I started with a call, went through the stakeholder's full priority list, and built a phased work plan — homepage first since that's where most visitors land, then support pages, then events and extras.
Each session I documented what I worked on, how long it took, and any decisions I made. If something wasn't possible in Wix, I flagged it clearly instead of breaking something trying to force it.
Getting Rid of the Hamburger Menu
On desktop, the site was using a hamburger menu — the three-line icon that hides all your navigation behind a click. That's fine on mobile, but on a full desktop screen it just makes people work harder to find pages. A lot of visitors won't bother.
I replaced it with a horizontal nav bar, cleaned up the menu items, renamed them to be clearer, and removed some leftover Wix icons that were cluttering the header for no reason.
After ↗Every page visible on load — no extra tap required
Fixing the First Thing People See
The homepage hero was a bit of a mess — the org name on the left and the donation widget on the right were fighting for attention without clear hierarchy. Text was hard to read against the background and the buttons didn't stand out. Not a great first impression for a nonprofit asking people to donate.
I worked on the balance between the two sides, added text contrast, tightened the spacing, made the CTAs more prominent, and pulled Community Events off the homepage entirely — it was adding noise and the homepage should stay focused on what SOAR actually needs: donations, adoptions, and volunteers.
After ↗Cleaner layout, readable text, donation widget balanced right
- Text contrast — Added shadow so the heading reads clearly against the background photo
- Layout balance — Adjusted the split between the org name and donate widget so neither dominates
- Donation box — Reduced oversized widget height to improve proportions
- Button visibility — Made Learn More and Shop Now more noticeable
- Homepage focus — Removed events block to reduce noise; still one click away in nav
Making the Layout Easier to Scan
The services were in one long single column — users had to visually trace wide rows to connect a service name with its button. More work than it needs to be. I restructured it into two columns with better spacing so everything is shorter to scan and easier to act on.
This screenshot also shows the updated footer. The original had incorrect links and no social media icons. I added the mailing address, phone, email, and working links for TikTok, Instagram, Facebook, and Etsy.
After ↗Two-column layout + footer with real contact info and active social links
Clearing Up the Confusion
The events page showed past and upcoming events the exact same way — no labels, no visual difference. Someone showing up to find something to attend had no way to tell what was still happening. I improved button visibility, fixed a cropped image on the Dessert for the Animals event, and looked into whether Wix could auto-separate past and upcoming events. It couldn't with the current setup, so I laid out two options for the stakeholder to decide on.
After ↗Events page — better button visibility, image cropping fixed
Knowing What You Can and Can't Control
"A few things on the priority list turned out to be locked by Wix — the store's Read More toggle and Sort By position are both platform-controlled with no override available. Trying to force them could break the store. I documented this clearly and communicated it rather than shipping something fragile. Part of doing good UX work is knowing when to say this isn't possible here, and explaining why."
Still in Progress
This project is ongoing — changes are saved in Wix and waiting on the stakeholder's final review before going live. There's still work to do on the About page, more design polish, and a few remaining footer items.
Working on a real nonprofit site with a real stakeholder is different from a class project. Priorities shift, communication matters, and sometimes the most useful thing you can do is document a decision clearly instead of making it for someone else.