UX Portfolio
Volli
Volunteering Application for Local Businesses
Overview
Volunteering opportunities are usually provided by big non-profits rather than small business owners. At the same time, reports show that in the last 15 years, the overall number of volunteers has mainly stayed the same. While the benefits of volunteering are wildly recognized, making a difference, giving back to the community, and developing new skills, people need better motivation to join in. The problem is that young people are likely to participate in social action but are still determining how to get involved. Since local businesses are essential for building local communities, engaging business in the whole volunteering process as a part of the reward system could make volunteering works more exciting and rewarding.
Roles/Responsibilities
The project was carried out by a team of four people throughout the duration of the assignment.
Users/Audience
Our product is aimed at people who are interested in volunteering and want to make this process more convenient.
Scope and Constraints
Out team was assigned to design a product as a sub-brand of outside company.
Project contained research and design parts. In addition to report and presentation team also prepared user interface specification document.
The entire duration of the project was two weeks.
Research
Our Partner and Main Concept
We want to drive more youth participation in local volunteering efforts and create a platform that connects people with local businesses for great causes. After careful consideration, we are excited to partner with Yelp- a crowdsourcing platform for discovering local businesses by providing a review system. We aim to link local businesses and users to make volunteering work more engaging and rewarding.
Volli is a mobile app that connects people with local businesses through volunteering. It differs from existing volunteering websites in that it benefits three parties - volunteers, local businesses, and recruiters - rather than just those who need help.
Volunteers will receive reviews from volunteering organizations, which will enhance their sense of accomplishment and connect them with others. A rewarding system helps local businesses build positive brand associations with the community. Additionally, recruiters will meet new volunteers and strengthen existing relationships. Ultimately, our goal is to help people discover their purpose through volunteerism and become part of something greater than themselves, because protecting people is about defending oneself.
Business Analysis
Our team used two studies to better understand Yelp business model and competitors. Using the Business Model Canvas, we researched the various functionalities of Yelp within the Business Model Canvas framework. This method provided us with useful takeaways:
• Yelp has three customer segments-local business, users and content contributors.
• Yelp as a platform provides exposure and visibility to local business, which can help us to connect the platform.
• Yelp reviews can generate business, and that will give us inspirations sponsor opportunity.
• Most of the Yelp revenue are coming from Ads
Competitive analysis were used in order to map out where our volunteering platform stands in relation to its competitors with regards to its business model. Our competitive analysis will help us to understand features users could be benefit from having, and what features our competitors are missing. Competitors didn't have infrastructure for networking and community feeling, lack of rewarding system, and no local business support.
Screener Survey
After performing all the analysis's we created user survey to understand people volunteering practices better an to find the most suitable candidates for user interview. Our survey showed that 82 percents of people volunteered before and 90 percent have interest in volunteering.
User Interviews
We selected five people for user interview. those candidates were people who volunteering or volunteered before for long time. All of our participants showed a strong passion to volunteering, they prefer a close proximity to location, and their favorite part was the socializing aspect of this type of work.
Affinity Mapping
After conducting our user interviews, we created affinity map to give a structure to all of our interviews. It helped understand challenges and needs that users face during their volunteering job.
Key Insights
• People want to be publicly recognized for the good deeds that they do.
• Volunteers are receptive to events that are shared by people they know on social media.
• Users want to be able to see the reviews and opinions of former volunteers for events.
• People want to be able to find volunteer opportunities that are in close proximity to them.
• Users want to be able to socialize, connect & foster relationships through volunteering.
• Volunteers value the real-world experience that come with volunteering.
Revised Problem Statements
We validated several assumptions through our research:
• People want to get some kind of reward when they do volunteer work.
• Neighbors want to have a more positive impact on their local communities.
• Volunteers like meeting others and building relationships through volunteer work.
• Locals want to be more involved in their community but aren’t always sure how to.
• People want to spend their leisure time on outdoor activities. (iconography)
How might we connect local individuals to volunteer in their communities while providing them with the necessary information about the event?
Persona and User Journey Map
With all this information gained from research we crafted our persona Marisol. She is young professional who wants to have volunteering experience and make new friends.
Marisol wants to help her community but she find it difficult to find local volunteering information in one place, also small organizations are not organized well as big corporations and she finds communication part very difficult before and after event.
We as designers wanted to address pain points that Marisol faces while she tries to make changes and help her community.
Design
Product Principles
Connectivity: Volli is a platform that brings local businesses, recruiters, and volunteers together.
Sustainability: Volli will allow people to create a more positive impact on their local communities by making the volunteering experience easy, exciting, and rewarding.
Transparency: With Volli, participants can also build relationships by adding friends and posting reviews, photos, and videos about different kinds of events.
Serve everyone: We encourage local businesses to sponsor our events. Our model is to promote local businesses that love to help so our volunteers have a more substantial support system.
Willingness to Change: We believe no business is too small, as no good cause is too minor. Through Volli, we can further connect great people with greater causes because everyone can be a hero for a day.
Possible feature list was created out of our user needs. Some of them are: review systems for user and businesses, event information, guest list, possibility to connect with people and creating networks, map to discover local events, calendar etc.
To prioritize some feature over others we used MushCoWo map and Feature prioritization Matrix.
Design Studio and Sketches
We gathered together as a team for design studio. During this time we used paper sketches to accumulate ideas and discuss them between all of us. After discussions we came up with sketched wireframes and a clear idea for creating Volli application.
Mid-Fi
Link for Mid-Fi application prototype
First digital touch of our design was Mid Fidelity clickable prototype that we tested with five users to gain usability information about Volli.
Hi-Fi Mockup
Link to Hi-Fi application mockup
Our final design is represented as clickable high fidelity mockup. We made lots of changes after usability testing on mid fidelity prototype. Rethinking usability issues helped is to improve usability test results.
For design elements consistency we developed design system that we used throughout the entire final mockup. Also part of the assignment was to create user interface specification document that potentially may be used by developers to build application with correct design requirements. Specs contained Application Map, User Flows for all five tasks, Annotated wireframes, APIs, and Style Guide.
User Flows and Usability Testing
In total we had two rounds of usability tests. For both of them we invited five people and provided then with the same script and five tasks to complete.
Majority of the results were improved compared to first round. those improvement include all three categories: time spent on task, easiness rating, and success rate.
Task #1: Open up Volli, and log in to the account.
Task #2: Register as a volunteer at the closest animal shelter near you.
Task #5: Check who is going with you for the animal shelter event and add Alex as your friend.
Next Steps
Some of the feature we would like to develop in the future are filter system and direct messaging.
After that the next steps to consider are to address the deficiencies found after conducting usability testing. Also to improve the design qualities of the site. And more time to make the prototype fully functional for other tasks and explore the research topic more.
Google HEART Framework