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ASME membership renewing and donations

Redesigning the overall digital experience for the ASME membership renewing process and collecting donations on ASME.org. As part of the ASME Unified Digital Architecture project.

DATE

Sep 2020 - June, 2021

CLIENT

ASME in house

ROLL

UX Program Manger

🧭 Background

ASME (American Society of Mechanical Engineers) is a global nonprofit organization that supports mechanical engineers through professional development, advocacy, and by developing the industry’s most widely used codes and standards. Many of these standards are developed collaboratively by volunteer members.

To maintain access to benefits, members must renew their membership annually. In addition, ASME relies heavily on donations to support its mission and programs. Unfortunately, the legacy systems managing both membership and donation processes were outdated and confusing, often resulting in a poor user experience and frustration—especially during renewals.

❗ The Challenge

The core issues:

  • Membership renewal and donation processes were tightly coupled within a legacy cart system.
  • Donations were automatically added to the cart during renewal without clear consent or visibility, often leading to unintentional charges.
  • Users would expect to pay a $50 renewal but were surprised with a $100 charge due to preselected donations—causing mistrust and a spike in support requests.
  • The donation system only allowed contributions from current members, limiting the donor pool and fundraising potential.

🧠 My Approach

  • Conducted UX audits of the existing flow, identifying user drop-off points and sources of confusion.
  • Mapped the legacy back-end systems to understand technical constraints and stakeholder dependencies.
  • Led collaborative workshops with internal leadership, customer care teams, and external vendors to align on a unified redesign vision.
  • Developed user flow diagrams and wireframes that demonstrated the proposed separation and simplification of the checkout process.
  • Facilitated stakeholder buy-in by modeling business impacts (e.g., fewer customer support tickets, more transparent donation tracking, ability to grow non-member donations).
  • Oversaw the transition through implementation, testing, and optimization in coordination with developers and business units.

💡 The Solution/Key changes:

I led the initiative to decouple the membership renewal and donation workflows—turning them into two distinct products within the checkout experience.
✅ Separation of products: Membership and donation now appear as two separate, clearly labeled items in the cart.
🔄 Optional donation step: Donations are no longer forced. Users are given the option to add a contribution or adjust donation values.
💾 Auto-filled member data: Returning members no longer need to re-enter address or contact info unless they choose to update it.
🧩 Simplified UX flow: Removed unnecessary steps and decision points that previously introduced friction and confusion.
🌍 Future-proofing donations: By decoupling donations from membership, ASME can now run standalone donation campaigns and target non-members as well.

This project exemplified the challenge of improving UX within rigid legacy systems while balancing internal politics, nonprofit goals, and user expectations. By taking a systems-thinking approach, I was able to introduce long-term scalability while solving immediate usability issues.

Looking ahead, the team is exploring:

  • Integrating donation micro-moments across the site (e.g., in content, after events, etc.)

  • Personalizing donation asks based on user behavior and engagement

  • Expanding donation access to mobile experiences and campaign landing pages

🔭 Reflections & Next Steps

📈 Results

🧾 Reduced customer service complaints related to billing by over 30% in the first quarter post-launch.

💸 Increased transparency and user trust in the renewal and donation processes.

🎯 Enabled future growth: ASME can now run independent donation campaigns targeting alumni, industry partners, and broader audiences.

⏱ Streamlined internal operations and reduced manual work for ASME support teams.