Will you be my hero(ine)?
and join me in helping fight cancer

Hi there,
My name is Aleks. I lead an Experience Design team by day and currently dedicate some of my nights to working on a great project. You don’t yet know me, but I hope we get to know each other. Let’s start with a story.
Before I start: we need a Wordpress Developer to come and take this project across and beyond the finish line. So if that’s you, read on and if you like the work, please get in touch with me to discuss how you can be involved! I would also be very grateful if you could share this with anyone that you know might be interested.
Part 1. Serendipity
You know how sometimes a series of events unfold in front of your eyes, swirling you into their motion, inevitable, like the flow of the river, surprising, like music you hear from behind slightly closed doors?
This is exactly what happened to me on Monday morning a month ago. That morning, in a short Skype note my mom asked me to share something via my network.
I opened the article and broke into cold sweat. A small child has been diagnosed with cancerous tumour. And it was not just the face silently looking at me from the adverts, part of the endless flow of asking us to ‘only give two pounds for a blanket or donate blood’. This was very real. A young mother found herself fighting our healthcare system (back where I come from, in Lithuania), a system that decides which treatment to pay for and which one not to. Not a lot left if that ‘other, unpaid’ treatment is your child’s last chance.
Talking about a certain sum in UK doesn’t seem unreasonable. Talking about it in back home, where people’s monthly salary in the best case equals one seventh of that sum, puts things in perspective. Article finished with details of children cancer fund collecting money for the treatment, all looking legitimate.
Part 2. The UX of effort
I spent my morning composing my post in 2 languages — russian, to share with russian moms networks, and lithuanian — in which the article my mom shared was originally written. ‘Problem identification’ happened fast:
- The whole article was very difficult to translate and time was of essence. I needed to include a google translate instruction in the post to enable people to do it themselves.
- As Facebook truncates posts, I needed to compose the first 2 sentences really well to let people know two things — the context and the core message — i know the family personally and they need help.
- The fund’s details were too low down the article page — I needed to type details out separately in case people were too busy to read / scan all of it to the bottom.
- I needed to write a third post to share with colleagues — with the set of different considerations — just context and bank details in an order that could be handled by ‘international transaction’ functionality and won’t require too much thought.
One of the first emails I received back looked like this:

And many followed, asking me to change the flow of the bank details, to add things, to translate, to find another way to transfer the money — international transaction costs, to write an article about this, to set up a separate page, a separate site, a separate account. Whilst I was merely a messenger.
In the middle of this communication paraphernalia that took over my day completely, I have reached out to search for fund’s website. And there it was in all its (messy) glory. It hasn’t changed for about 13 years, as the owner of it later told me. So imagine a 13 year old website, designed by enthusiasts not exactly sure of what they are doing. You get the picture.
After considerable amount of browsing I found 2 ‘hidden’ things that would have made my morning tasks much easier:
- Paypal address to transfer the funds
- A list of all donations (manually updated) with you left to calculate how much is still to go before target.
The end of this chapter is “we got there quick”. There was a lot of us willing to help. The sum was collected and given to girl’s mom.
Part 3. Opportunity
My job with addressed and targeted help was kind of done but the question remained — their website was hauntingly badly designed, and they seemed to be doing a lot of good things that were hidden.
Things like helping hospitals to buy equipment. Things like accomodating children and parents in specially arranged cosy flats to rest from treatment and hospitals, or simply not to spent time in hotels if travelling from other cities. They had stories from the kids who survived and were supported, they had stories from the ones who did not. Including their own daughter, who they lost to cancer at the age of 3.
I reached out to them and asked whether I could make a site that works. Having to take a flight to Lithuania the same week, all naturally fell into places — we met in their office, them being slightly suspicious of someone ‘wanting to work for free. are you sure you can take critique?’ It’s hard to promise something to someone who has been burnt before, neither should you. All I was going to do it try my best.
Many things they do filled me with respect and fascination, from the fact that they created ‘bridges of trust’ with other countries to blood donations, to events they orgnise to make the kids feel better. Small but focused effort can move mountains. That’s a topic for entirely another article.
More I talked to the client, more I realised the problemspace we’re exploring very different from what you may imagine being only ‘make the donation button very visible on every page’.
“Strategic” problems like this one:

Or “tactical” problems like this one:

All of them requiring tenderness and care about people you are designing for. Certain degree of tact and thoughtfulness and also knowledge too. Did you know how long kids spend in isolation at the hospital? Did you know how many decisions parents have from the diagnosis onwards — from what catheter to use to how to talk about it with a child? And this is not even scratching the surface.
Part 4. Current status
So with problem identification piece on this moving full steam ahead, some of the site starting to take a bit of definition. We could be on track to deliver a great Christmas gift to the fund and all the people they support.
But. When were good things ever done alone?
I know, deep in you heart, you are a developer. Even maybe a wordpress developer? A hero, who would help us build a good experience for a small but very determined charity in Lithuania and do it pro-bono — in tandem with me. I know it’s a big ask too, I am asking for your time and skills in exchange for learning, fun, and challenges. I also promise impact on someone else’s life and health.
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So, if there’s a little bit of Wonder Woman or a tad of Robyn Hood in you, and you code — come and join me. This project is amazing. It’s a lot like serendipity, bringing love you never asked for but simply can’t help but feel. Trust me, I know.
Looking forward to working with you,
Yours,
A.
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@alex_andr_a is an Experience Design Director, a bit of a book nerd, a metaphor addict.
