This is an examination of how well a major donor site performs according to a low bandwidth test, derived from "Web Design by Donor Organizations for Low Bandwidth".
USAID is one of the top donor organizations in the world, and somehow managed to be one of the most difficult to use from a granting perspective. The first page was 368 KB, which is higher than desired. In trying to find grant information, it took me—a native English speaker with grant seeking experience, in a high bandwidth environment—20 minutes (by far the longest in my sample). I finally found it on the Business page (not intuitively where I thought I’d find it), which was 168 KB. The site doesn’t have a low bandwidth page, so I can only imagine how long this search would have taken in, say, my NGO in Ukraine. On the Business page, there is a link for grants that leads to a whole separate website, Grants.gov. Why not have that link on the first page? Grants.gov is a great page in that it allows you to see more than just what USAID is funding. Overall, USAID’s site, given its global funding presence and reach, is the one that appears to need the most improvement. For NGOs seeking funding, this site simply isn’t conceived in a way to make that easy for those with the most need. (Screenshots of relevant pages below)
Donor: USAID
Website: http://www.usaid.gov
First Page size test: 368 KB
Time spent seeking grant info: 20 minutes
Clicks to granting info: 2
Clicks to actual grant application: 7
Low bandwidth version: No
Application (PDF, doc, or online): Broken Link on Grants.gov page
Available languages: English
USAID Business page size: 168 KB
Grants.gov first page size: 156 KB
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