Australian Red Cross Lifeblood
A Human-Centred Design approach to encourage current donors to continue donating by improving the Digital Solution, and implementing the DONATE TODAY feature — Case Study.
The Problem —
The Australian Red Cross Lifeblood needs more people to donate more regularly so they can keep up with demand. COVID impacted donation rates significantly with high levels of cancellations, due to feelings of “social hangover” and stress caused by COVID. With over 140,000 donors needed in 2022 to keep up with the demand, Lifeblood will need an increase of 45% of donors to come back to meet the needs of patients across Australia.
The Project Goal —
Our goal was to create an unique solution to solve our user’s problems and achieve business goal, by focusing on one key feature:
- DONATE TODAY — A feature that enables current donors to have quick access to the next appointment available. The goal of this process was to reduce the cognitive load of the user, increase his engagement and fast forward him into a donation chair as soon as possible.
Let me walk you through the Process…
DISCOVER: Researching
We started our project with a Secondary and Primary Research, taking a holistic approach to discover more about the users, their goals and pain points throughout the process of blood donation and also understand the process as a whole, by visiting clinics and also understanding the employees behind it. We needed to be their VOICE!
Our research goals were:
- To find out who they are, what they do, why people donate, why they stopped donating, why they are not coming back and why they decided to donate at first place;
- To identify any friction points in the donation process (from the booking app to the actual clinic);
- To understand how (or most specifically IF) COVID affected/impacted their behaviour towards blood donation.
We then interviewed 20 people with the goal of verifying our assumptions about COVID and what opportunities we had, by answering the questions above and understanding the user journey.
Our findings…
Results from our research showed us that COVID wasn’t the only reason why people stopped donating.
DEFINE: Synthesizing our findings
Based on Affinity Mapping results, we identified 3 different Personas, each with different behaviours and motivations towards blood donation, which correlated with our Secondary Research findings.
We believed that the persona that would make the BIGGEST IMPACT was the one that used to donate before COVID and suddenly stopped.
“It is easier to encourage past donors to donate more often”.
WHY?
Because comparing with people who never donated before, casual donors are more likely to take action, they just need a good reason.
Now, getting to define our Problem…
So, “How might we ensure that convenience is at the forefront in the scheduling process?”
We needed improve the digital experience, and provide all the information in one place!
DESIGN: What are we going to prioritise?
After rounds of Crazy 8’s and Design Studio, keeping in mind the definition of Convenience, we generated 24 different features.
Using an MVP matrix, we prioritised the features that would have the Highest Impact, for the Lowest Effort (by the business).
DELIVER: It’s time for our solution! (finally)
After 4 rounds of Usability Test with current users, we were able to apply feedback and jump to our Final Solution, by designing our Hi-fi prototype.
It is extremely important to run tests and listen to feedback before implementing the final solution (so we can save time in the future) because, at the end of the day, we are all working to improve people’s lives.
(this is what I call HUMAN-CENTRED DESIGN).
WE WANTED TO MAKE A POSITIVE IMPACT ON SOCIETY!
- Our solution streamlines the whole process for our user, reducing the amount of clickable screens from 4 to 2.
- At a glance, this screen shows “What appointments are available” and “How far away they are”. Once the user clicks into them he can see detailed info and go to the next screen to confirm his appointment.
Through prioritising time and location instead of date alone, we believe that the DONATE TODAY feature will encourage past donors to donate more regularly and help Lifeblood meet the current demand for blood.
Key Takeaways
- We believe that we were able to achieve the business goals of improving their digital experience by implementing the Donate Today feature. This will encourage people who used to donate, to book more often. But the most important take away was that we could dug dipper enough to understand the real reasons why people were not coming back;
- We could also understand how important is to keep a good communication within the team, to be able to move forward quickly, because of the time constrains;
- By Iterations and Usability Testing (implementing feedback and making improvements), we were able to validate our process.
My Personal Learnings
- Having deeper conversations with the users to find out their pain points, needs and especially behaviours is the key, it gives us a “North Star”.
- Creating a Team Charter at the beginning helped us move forward without any ambiguity according to roles or expectations;
- It was amazing to actually be part of such an amazing team, and being able to create a feature that can make a real difference to society.
Thanks for the visit! If you would like to know more about this amazing project, let me know…
We can grab a virtual coffee!
