Give Grow
Reinventing the way we invest our extra income.
About the Project
Duration: 36 hours, October 2018
Team: 3 developers (Boon Palipatana, Jennifer Lee, Varun Iyengar)+ 1 designer (me)
My Role: Designer
Tools: Sketch, inVision, Adobe Illustrator, Pen & Paper
Background: This project was created during the Fall 2018 Big Red Hacks Hackathon. The theme of the event was “the future”.
Problem: Many people would like to put their disposable income toward worthwhile causes, but they can’t do that because:
1. They feel like they don’t earn enough to make a meaningful contribution.
2. It takes too much time to research exactly what charity someone would like to donate to.
Goal: Create a simple, easy-to-use webapp that:
1. Proves to users that even little amounts of money can add up to make a significant impact.
2. Allows user to easily visualize the impact of their contribution without having to do their own backhand research.
3. Easily allows them to donate directly to an organization with the click of a button.
About the Solution
When a user logs onto the website for the first time, they can either log in or sign up.
When they sign up, they can enter either their weekly or annual income and pick a percentage for how much of their income they’d like to set aside for charitable giving. The platform would then auto-calculate how much money this would be per day.
After logging in or registering, the user sees a very simple dashboard. On the top of the screen, the user can see basic information about how their “donation fund” has been growing.
The four buttons below take them to the “shop” where they can browse options for putting their donation fund money to good use.
Each “item” in each category automatically calculates how much of a good or service a user can buy with their current donation fund.
By clicking each card, the user can “buy” the goods or services listed and directly send the money in their Give Grow fund to the associated charity.
Reflection
This was such a fun and amazing experience that I can’t wait to do again in the Spring. During hackathons, I usually like to practice my visual design skills and this project was a great way to get me back on Illustrator.
Next time, I definitely want to put more time in designing the user flow and laying out the screens in terms of low-fi content architecture. I really got caught up in asset creation this time around but next time, I want to focus on designing the overall experience.
In the end though, I couldn’t have made this idea (that I actually just doodled out in my HCI Design class a weeks earlier!) a reality without my team and I’m so grateful for having had the opportunity to work with them :)
