Design Process: Issues-based news app

Given the events of the last week, I was more inspired than ever to dive into creating personas for and wireframing my app. After the Inauguration and Women’s March, I had countless conversations with friends who wanted to get involved with the resistance and stay up-to-date with all of Trump’s actions, but didn’t know where to look. Behold, my personalized issues-based news app.

I began by thinking about who would be the target demographic for this audience. Based on my conversations over the last few weeks, I believe college-educated millennials is the main target demo in a broad sense.

My first persona is Sarah, a young woman who recently entered the NYC workforce. She’s busy with work and her personal life, but she, like many, are passionate about making a difference over the next four years.

My next persona is Yasmeen. She’s been volunteering her whole life and is extremely politically active. Although she’s inspired by her peers’ desire to get involved, she wants to make sure she keeps her job at Planned Parenthood and is able to properly inform her less-active friends and family.

Next up was tracking each of these women’s journeys from learning about an issue in the news to getting involved.

Sarah’s user journey:

Yasmeen’s user journey:

Both users’ experiences involve many different steps, websites, Googling and social media sites. Although Sarah’s journey begins with learning about an issue in the news and Yasmeen’s begins with seeing her friends sharing relevant topics on social media, both have the same end result: acting on an issue with their community.

My app would simplify this process and allow users to get the latest news, learn about relevant nonprofits and volunteer opportunities in their area and take action all in one place.

Now, on to wireframing my app. Originally, I wanted to have hubs for specific issues, but after going through my users’ journeys, it made more sense to tie volunteer opportunities and actions to the news cycle.

A user would get a personalized push notification every day at the same time that would bring them into a personalized home screen of the app.

The personalized home screen would break down the top 3 news stories for the specific user with a drop down menu. The drop down menu would include options to learn more about the story (this would launch aggregate content in the app), actions to take for the story and a share option.

The app home screen would allow users to explore other news stories, nonprofits and opportunities to get involved. Each area will have a sharing function that will make it really simple for the user to get their friends involved.

Now that I’ve created the personas and a basic wireframe, I’m already thinking of ways to iterate on the app and user experience. Inside the app there would be opportunities for sponsored content, a nonprofit of the month and a directory of government officials a user could contact about any given issue. I’d also love to create an in-app messaging experience to make it easy for users to collaborate and plan volunteer opportunities.