Urgent Action Fund
Urgent Action Fund for Feminist Activism (UAF) provides fast, flexible support to women, trans and non-binary activists—enabling them to respond to unexpected risks and opportunities, and protect and care for one another.
As a queer and feminist-led studio, we partnered with UAF at a moment of transition: their refreshed identity was ready, but their digital presence was difficult to navigate and hard to maintain. Drawing on our lived experience with activist movements, our priority was to create a simpler, more modern platform that makes it easy for people to find what they need, whether they’re applying for a rapid-response grant or making a donation.
Project Team
UX Research and Design: Eva Kamenetski
UI Design: Alaïs de Saint Louvent and Zoe Tang
Development: Sofiia Bondarenko
The Challenge
UAF’s work moves at the pace of real-world urgency. Their website needed to match that reality—helping visitors reach the right information quickly, without overwhelm.
We acted as a strategic partner to ensure the site served distinct audiences: grantseekers looking for clear guidance, donors seeking a strong view of impact, and an internal team that needed digital autonomy. The site also needed to reflect UAF’s intersectional personality—bold, warm, and trustworthy—while meeting high web accessibility standards and supporting multilingual content.
What We Did
We redesigned and rebuilt UAF’s website in WordPress, grounding the work in clarity and ease. Structurally, we focused on simplifying navigation and information architecture so key pathways—applying for support, donating, and getting involved—are easy to locate.
We engineered the experience to be mobile-first, ensuring the site works smoothly across screen sizes for activists who may be accessing information on the go. As always, inclusive design was treated as a baseline: we adapted brand colours for WCAG readability and shaped content to be scannable, legible, and easy to comprehend.
Visually, we developed a system that carries UAF’s activist-rooted energy. Bold typography and editorial cut-outs bring momentum, while a repeatable circular frame motif helps content feel consistent and anchored.
To support digital sustainability, we made performance-conscious choices—limiting heavy animation to support page loading speeds and reduce energy use, while still keeping the experience engaging. Alongside this, we built practical structures such as a filterable blog and a clear home for impact reports, as well as straightforward signposting to subscriptions and social channels.
Impact
The new site gives UAF a platform that better reflects who they are now—modern, bold and values-led. By prioritising inclusive UX and simplified journeys, we reduced the cognitive load for grantseekers in high-pressure situations, ensuring support is easier to access than ever.
Behind the scenes, the modular build was designed to be easier to manage—supporting UAF’s team to keep content current without wrestling with a complex system.
Ultimately, our work provided the functional infrastructure for feminist solidarity: a website that communicates impact and invites participation quickly, accessibly, and with care.
