My Coursera Capstone Project
This has been a huge personal project. It’s not big deal, I know but it’s been my big deal for a while. There’s one thing I would like to say: the worst part of the experience is that is, actually, a solitary experience. Designing, iterate, think and rethink on your own it’s hard. There is a risk in hanging on some kind of bad idea, a poor solution or something similar because you’re basically, on your own.
‘Microdonaciones, macroayuda’ wants to create a shortcut between small Civic & Charity associations (specially local, not global like AI or Greenpeace -they’re ok but not for this specific idea-) and ordinary people who is willing to give what they’re not using anymore, but don’t know how to donate those objects to these associations. Create a some kind of second hand ad dashboard, a bridge between people and small charity associations.
The idea is to create a way where, if a person has, for example, some school books he/she won’t need anymore, he/she can offer them in this web app. Then, a local association or a little school in need, can consult that ‘ad’ and have a easy way to contact the donor (by e-mail o by chat) Then the users will be able to select a place and a date and a delivery method to finalize the transaction. In an ideal way the goal is geo-tag the users so you can see the offers that are closest to you in order to make even easier the donation process. Micro-donations are a wonderful way to help little associations and it’s one of the favorite ways to help that people used to choose because it’s simple, quick and it doesn’t take too much time or demand a long-lasting compromise.
Which has been the main design decisions through this project?…Well, let’s start from the beginning.
I’m part of a research lab focused on charity actions and voluntary services. You can know more from us in www.mecomprometo.es We are interested in knowing how people manage solidarity and we’re researching about new ways to help people to help. We want to make it easier to avoid the prejudices people may have or what stops them to involve more in their communities. The Capstone Project is, in a way, a spin-off from this main project.
The first step, the research phase, was easy. I just went on with that task I devote so much time in my leisure time. I observed how people create new ways to share and to give. For example, I found this wonderful idea in a public library. Penalties for delays could be changed by 1KG of food that was going to be delivered to needed families. Great!
When I had to first think in which kind of project I wanted to focused there were several ideas, for which I created several story boards and paper prototypes on my board.
There weren’t perfect at all, and I didn’t like all about them ,but I wanted to , somehow, include in the project elements from these two first ideas . Then, I created two first paper prototypes:
I have focused the project over a mix of these two prototypes. The first test with potential users made with these two paper prototypes helped me a lot. I saw more clearly how the interaction had to evolve, where to focus and I started to think in how to do it. For example, I learnt that the app had to do just one thing. Not a lot of features or possibilities, not an enormous menu. I decided to focus on donation because was the idea that liked most and that was the best welcomed among the users I showed the first prototypes. I listened very carefully to their ideas. Having two ways to communicate with the donor was an idea that came from this conversations.
Heuristic evaluation also helped me to find out the lot of thing I had missed out till then. It’s a really important phase and I think it should be retaken during all the process, in all the different, more evolved, versions of the prototype that emerge throughout the project.
In this moment I started to create a digital prototype using Axure. In a first moment, I decided to use a bottom menu. These first prototypes were rough and the interaction was a mere sketch of what they had to be at the end of the project.
I first tested this with a couple of users and I discovered that the bottom menu was not being understood. That bad decision I made was adulterating the understanding of the whole app. The users weren’t able to navigate, and instead of focused on “what this app does?”, they were focused on “Where am I?”. I decided to change it immediately.
The next step was conducting an A/B test. I created two versions of the app based on the user tests I had made before. The A version maintained the original bottom menu and the B version had a more classical hamburger menu structure. I have also included some minor changes on chat feature and create a donation feature. I used usertesting.com to compare the user’s feedback to these two versions and the results were very clear. The B version was easier, the users took half the time on version B to accomplish the same task that in version A. In the additional comments users suggested to create a more structured and complete donation information card. The decisions were crystal clear: the final changes had to go on that direction.
The final prototype has the classic hamburger drop down menu.
There are also less buttons, the whole image is clickable obtaining a lighter version of the app.
I have also changed the way the information is displayed. Now it’s structured and the most important information is adequately separated from the rest of the information.
I have learned a lot from this experience. The most important thing for me it’s that this project is alive. This is not the end. I think that it can work. It needs so much hard work, research, iteration and redesigning but now I can continue with my colleagues at MeComprometo and with whoever to wants to join me. I only had an idea (and it’s not a brilliant one) Having an idea is just a little bit part of the whole thing. Now’s coming the best part.
Happy designing!