in.volv — the volunteer app
To design a social app that will help motivate Vancouverites to volunteer and help out their community.
The problem
Vancouver has a massive amount of volunteer work that isn’t visible to the people that want it, or at least it isn’t as accessible.
The opportunity/solution
Opportunity: Some people have issues with finding volunteer work from a reliable source
Solution: Gather all the data into one spot and geotag them
Opportunity: Fears about safety and privacy
Solution: Make them sign-in via Facebook or Gmail for verification
Opportunity: Has little or no community service
Solution: design the app to be enjoyable, fun, and intuitive (game-ify the app by challenging other users, take on missions, set goals, join groups)
User interview script
1. Who are you? (whats your age/where are you from/describe yourself in one sentence) and what 3 social media apps do you use? 2. Name 3 things you are good at in your field of work, and name 3 things you are good at outside of work? 3. How often do you volunteer when you have the time? 4. Where would you look for volunteer work? 5. What 3 things matter to you most? 6. What do you like about social media? 7. How much volunteer work have you done?
8. How do you feel after helping someone out? 9. What might be some concerns in volunteering? 10. In a scale of 1–10, how outgoing are you? 11. In a scale of 1–10 how would you rate the kindness of the city you live in? 12. what causes do you support?
Domain & competitors
Volunteer Match
Craigslist
Govolunteer
(Volunteer Centers)
Google Search
User Scenarios
- Lauren is a busy girl, she has little time for herself but wants to help out her community. She doesn’t think Craigslist is a viable source for information, and some of the websites she goes to aren’t updated. She needs an app that will aggregate volunteering options that interest her based on location, time and availability in a fun, safe and intuitive way.
Use Case
Finding A Place To Volunteer
User must be logged in and have an account created via Facebook/Gmail (for identity and safety)
- App displays homepage with the following icons:
1. profile
2. find a place to volunteer
3. activity
4.settings - Select ‘find a place to volunteer’
- Choose your preference: location or by cause
- Based on the previous search, a map is overlayed with pins for each cause
- Tapping a pin displays the cause’s information (time, description, rating, etc) and a reserve/accept cause button, in a pop up above the pin.
- User taps the reserve/accept cause button to reserve a spot/accept the mission
- app e-mails user the itinerary stating wether they were accepted or not and is given a reminder via app, also asks to confirm
- app prompts user in notifications.
- after the job is done, the volunteer place will send a follow up email with a qr code or code that the user will scan or input…the stats will then change with a ranking system with other peers using the app.
Persona
Site Map
User Flow
Prototype 1 / Wireframes:
Round 1 Usability Testing:
5 people were tested for usability ages 19–25.
Objective: Sign up for volunteer work.
User 1 — scans navigation but doesn’t choose one, expected a side menu pop up, “i’m unclear about the ‘filtered message’ header”
User 2 — doesn’t think the navigation is intuitive, or at least not familiar with it. Doesn’t understand map header. Stuck on itinerary page because of font size.
User 3 — “What’s with the number on the 24 hour confirmation?”, asked if it was a ticketing system.
User 4 — Doesn’t understand why the date is important in itinerary page. Too big?
Usability Testing Solutions:
User 1 and 2 — Unfamiliar icon placement was causing the user to stall and gesture a hidden menu panel by sliding up or to the side with their thumb. It became apparent that I had to revert to a familiar ios nav bar that focuses on the main goal and having a side panel activated by a hamburger menu.
User 4 and 5 — Brand voice was unclear and didn’t guide the user to the next step. Trigger words like “20 unfiltered” gave hope to the user that it could then be “filtered”. Solution would be to add radio boxes to personalize search results, or have the map populate as it scans the area.