Designing a Mobile Website to connect Volunteers with Projects
Project Background
Communiteer is building a community-based platform that connects virtual volunteers with non-profit organisations. The project involved researching volunteers and developing a prototype for a mobile version of their platform.
Why This Project
Communiteer has a low percentage of volunteers on its platform who get involved in projects.
My Role
I was part of a team of 12 who were studying with Harness Projects. We researched as a team over four weeks. Then individually designed & prototyped over the next four weeks, and presented our solutions to the client. We would meet 1-2 times a week as a group with a mentor to discuss insights, problems and next steps. I took on a leadership role in the team, organising our research report and regular catchups.
The Solution
My solution was a clickable prototype that demonstrated the two ways for volunteers to find relevant opportunities. View the prototype here (opens in a new tab)
The goal was to design a mobile website that makes it easy for volunteers to join projects
- There was already a functional desktop website, but it was not responsive to mobile devices.
- The client also wanted us to investigate the idea of having people “pledge their time”, where they could be approached based on their skills and availability.
- We would also look at how volunteers found opportunities and look for pain points and opportunities.
Limitations:
- COVID-19: Restrictions started during this project which meant that all testing and some user research was done remotely.
- Remote team: Our team was spread across two countries and four cities.
We team conducted 25 user interviews with volunteers
Key Findings:
- A mix of short & long term: There was a mix of volunteers who committed to long-term roles and those who regularly took part in small projects.
- Volunteering is pledging time: When asked about the concept of pledging time, volunteers said that’s what volunteering was. A button saying “pledge your time” would confuse them as they already were pledging their time by volunteering.
Some of the team’s research findings. What people are looking for in Volunteering opportunities and their frustrations.
The data showed there are two types of volunteers, short and long term
The research showed 2 key Personas, with the key difference is that Jessie wants short-term, and Georgia wants long-term opportunities.
This Customer Journey Map shows the problems Georgia faces getting a long-term Volunteering role.
We conducted a How Might We session to brainstorm ideas
I took part in a brainstorming session with several members of the team, where we came up with some How Might We statements and generated ideas.
Some of the data from the brainstorming session
I then looked at other volunteer sites to see what could be borrowed or improved upon
I looked at 5 volunteer websites. Primarily reviewing their home pages, and the signup, browsing and viewing projects processes.
I decided on 2 methods for volunteers to get involved in projects
- Search: Traditional search method, where users would be able to search for opportunities based on filters.
- Recommendations: Users would select their preferences and get recommended projects. If they then signed up, the recommendations would be updated with new projects. This would also meet the clients pledging time concept, although with a different name.
I did some very rough User Flows using pencil and paper, to see how that might work.
Several iterations of sketching, prototyping, and testing allowed me to quickly develop the final solution
I used rough sketches to work quickly plan all the screens
I turned the sketches into a lo-fi prototype and iterated through 2 rounds of testing.
Testing showed that my solution, which I presented to the client, worked
The client particularly liked the “get recommendations” aspect of my solution. However, there were other aspects of my solution that I did not do a great job of justifying, and I learnt a lot from how I presented those.
You can view the prototype here (opens in a new tab)
Some of the slides of the final solution, presented to the client. In total there were 14 screens in the final solution.
