Give
A Mobile Volunteer App
Find the Right Volunteer Opportunity for You
Project
Developing a mobile volunteer app to streamline the search for ideal opportunities, fostering increased volunteer engagement nationwide.
Status
Native mobile app in progress
My Role
Lead Designer: Research, Ideating, Hi-Fidelity Designs, Prototyping, & Usability Testing
Timeline
4 months
The Overview
For years, I have been interested in volunteering and after moving to a new state, I thought, “What better way to get involved with the community, then with volunteering?” As I started to explore volunteer opportunities, I quickly felt overwhelmed. I was using multiple resources, trying to find anything of interest, and when I did find a cause I was interested in, I discovered that I did not meet the requirements. It was frustrating! I was curious - do other people have similar experiences? Why don’t more people volunteer?
My Role
UX Designer
I led the research, information architecture, interaction, and visual design of Give since the outset of the project in August 2019. Throughout the duration of the project, I collaborated with experienced Senior UX Designer and Mentor, Shivam Dewan.
The Challenge
Since 2005, the national volunteer rate has declined, and a portion of that is due to lack of good resources and time flexibility. Though there are a handful of volunteer mobile apps in the market, why aren’t more people utilizing them?
“What type of challenges and barriers do people face when looking to find and sign up for a volunteer event? How might we make finding the right volunteer opportunity easier?”
The Approach
Starting this project from the ground up, I knew I had some exploring to do before jumping into design solutions:
Research
I began by looking at the market to see what existing volunteer mobile apps were out there. What did they offer the user? What made each unique? What stood out about each one in a positive or negative way? I then sent out a survey to ask individuals who have volunteered, are interested in, or are currently volunteering, about their experience with the volunteer sign up process. I used the survey results to inform which individuals I would contact for user interviews.
I was able to download and try three various types of volunteer mobile apps: Point, Golden, and JustServe.
I compared each of them to one another, keeping in mind the features I was considering for Give. See detailed research process link below for a more detailed heuristic analysis.
Areas of Opportunities
Once I gathered all of the information from our research, I mapped them in order to find common themes and ideas. This helped to discover clear user personas and pain points that would guide our design focus. In the end, based on the research findings, I heard four common pain points:
User Personas
Out of the five user interviews I conducted, 3 out of the 5, clearly voiced their motivation for volunteering was to connect with like minded people and look for opportunities to build relationships. 2 out of the 5 communicated that they were motivated to volunteer to network and look for opportunities to grow professionally. All five shared their desire to give back and bring joy to others.
The Community Man, is new to volunteering and perhaps recently moved to a new city/state. He is looking to meet people and build relationships with like-minded people, while at the same time, making an impact in his community
The Career-Focused Woman, is an experienced volunteer, who is interested in giving back to her community, while networking and looking for professional growth.
The Vision
Create a Platform that Makes Finding the Right Volunteer Opportunity Easier
My vision for Give was to evolve the volunteer search experience, through a completely new design approach.
Create an intuitive mobile platform, allowing anyone to find a cause they are interested in through a level of customization, which will allow users to tailor their search to fit their needs and avoid searching through an exhaustive catalog of volunteer events at once.
Starting from the four common pain paints, I looked to find solutions to solve each.
Navigation: Design a clean and clear home screen that provides a category filter feature, avoiding too much information, to get a result in the first instance.
Feedback features: Create reminder feedback to those who have signed up for volunteer events, to provide a level of accountability.
Social: Design a social network feature, allowing people to connect with their own networks and see who within their network might be interested in similar volunteer events.
Favorites: Create an easy and recognizable feature for people to be able to save volunteer events for later viewing.
Design
Taking insights from research and the focused list of design solutions, I then began ideating, sketching, and wireframing different design ideas to prototype.
Lo-Fi Sketches - round 1
Based on the established pain points, and the solutions in mind, I gathered some inspiration for the UI and sketched options for each. In some cases, I sketched multiple options. For example, when it came to the Home Screen, I sketched 2-3 layout iterations, and took those into wireframes.
Sketches above, show the transition from the home screen, to a specific volunteer event details screen, to a modal sign-up confirmation screen.
Sketches above, show the transition from a 2nd home screen iteration, to a filter popup screen, to a cause category filter screen.
Wireframes
After sketching lo-fidelity red route screens, I created digital wireframes of those red routes, focusing on the key features and the appropriate flow from one screen to another. I often had to remind myself to avoid getting too caught up in the small details, and save those final touches for high-fidelity screens.
Above wireframes, show three Home Screen iterations. The first two being versions of a similar layout, and the third showing a completely different Home Screen layout.
Insight
I realized that I hadn’t truly explored “all” of the Home Screen iterations one could offer a user. I owed it to the potential user to explore those before moving into prototyping. It’s important for any designer to be able to speak to the fact that they explored “all” options, and why they chose the layout they did.
Lo-Fi Sketches - round 2
Knowing additional Home Screen layout iterations were needed to be explored, I quickly sketched additional potential layouts through very rough sketchups.
Above sketches, show multiple Home Screen iterations - exploring ways to make searching for an event unique and user friendly.
Prototyping
With the designs, framework, and key featured screens decided on, it was time to combine them all into one cohesive prototype. I used Sketch to create hi-fidelity screens, from on-boarding screens to upcoming volunteer event screens, and uploaded those art-boards directly to InVision to create a fully functioning prototype.
Find the Right Volunteer Event
Give’s search navigation is curated based on location. Users can search for a volunteer event through pre-selected popular events in their area, specific cause categories, and through a standard full length search bar.
The Home Screen was designed with ethical intent, for the user to search for something in particular - in this case, a volunteer event - rather than an infinite scrolling option. This provides the user a sense of control, while also clarifying that they are able to determine easily if what they are seeking is actually there or not.
Connect with Others
People who have logged into Give through one of their social networks, can view and message friends and/or social connections, that are interested or going to a specific volunteer event.
Once someone clicks on a specific volunteer event and scrolls towards the bottom of the screen, they will be able to view social network connections that are either interested or going to that particular volunteer event. Social network connections are pulled based on how the user chooses their SSO option upon the initial launch of the mobile app.
Easy Reminders
My Events is a tab feature that takes the work out of remembering what upcoming events you have. My Events helps to manage both upcoming and past events, so you can quickly locate what you need, and spend more time finding a new volunteer event. In addition to My Events, you can view your upcoming events on the Home Screen.
From left to right: Home screen displays “your upcoming events” at the top of the screen, making it the first thing you see when you re-launch your app. The My Events tab will display “upcoming" events” and “past events,” making it easy for the user to toggle back and forth to view their history. The “past events” screen will display a clear empty state screen for first time app users, letting them know that once they volunteer and complete an event, that specific event will appear under “past events.”
Validation
Once we had the prototype in place, it was time to test it out and see how it performed with people. Through a mass slack audience, as well as some private forums (direct email), I gathered participants to go through our user testing. I asked each participant to complete a series of tasks, to gather their feedback and impressions on their experience.
Task Script
In order to understand how people would respond to Give, I asked them to complete a series of tasks. Some tasks:
How would you look for a volunteer event to fit your needs?
How would you learn more about a specific volunteer event?
How would you connect with someone going to an event?
How would you sign up for the event?
How would you look at volunteer events you’ve signed up for?
How would you change your response to a signed up event if you could no longer go?
Tasks Measured
The first round of user testing went fairly smooth, with a positive response towards the intuitiveness of the mobile app. The participants voiced that the layout was clean and easy to understand, and they were pleased by the level of detail and clarity around a specific volunteer event. Many voiced that they have not come across a volunteer mobile platform like Give, and that they were attracted to the social networking aspect.
Insights
I observed that most of the user testers shared a level of disappointment when signing up for a volunteer event. They voiced they felt surprised by how quickly they were signed up once they clicked the “volunteer” button, almost as if they were accepting an invitation for a party, vs committing to something more serious.
I also heard from user testers, that they could not clearly see the option to unregister from a signed up volunteer event. They liked the option to cancel a volunteer reservation themselves, rather than having to call the organization, but they needed to be able to see it more clearly.
The Refinement
I investigated potential solutions to improve the users experience when signing up for a volunteer event and canceling an existing reservation. Through rough sketches, and design inspiration, I refined the hi-fidelity screens to run a second round of usability tests.
I researched ways to build in that level of user accountability when it came to signing up for an event. I added in an in-between confirmation screen, which allowed the user to re-review the details of the event, and confirm their commitment. I ran a second round of usability tests with a new set of users, and was pleased by the positive response the users shared when they received this confirmation screen.
Offering the user a way to easily cancel a volunteer event reservation is a topic no doubt, that from a business perspective would cause further conversation, and potential push back. A business might argue that it could ultimately encourage people to cancel their volunteer reservations more regularly. I would kindly encourage anyone doubting the feature, to look at it from an ethical intention perspective. If we as designers are tasked with creating or modifying a product that will ultimately satisfy the user and the business needs, what better way to grow your business than through positive reputation through product reliability and ease of use?
Conclusion
For this project, I learned a lot about what people respond to, what features are really important, and what can easily become confusing. This project has a lot of potential and is one that I am extremely proud of. I will continue work on additional screens that are not currently built out, and continue to look for ways to improve existing screens based off of user testing.
I strongly believe there is a way to help people volunteer on a more regular basis, and get them excited about finding the right volunteer opportunity. If Give can be even a small step in that direction, then I will have considered this project successful :)
All information in the projects are my own and does not necessarily reflect the views of respective companies.