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Will Volunteer App

Role & Skills 👤

This project was done in a team of two people.
I was responsible for:
• Conducting interviews
• Lo-fi/Hi-fi prototypes
• User testing
• Graphic design/brand guidelines
• Final UI design

Project Overview 📄

Will allows users to find personalized volunteering experiences easily and provides a digital platform for  volunteers and organizations.

Will at a glance

Convenient
Will's main feed allows user to switch between map and list views as soon as the app opens. The navigation button is fixed at the bottom for users to interact through the feed, activity, bookmarks, profile and settings with ease.

Secure
During the onboarding process, users will be asked to scan a photo ID in order to verify their identities. This is an optional step, however if users would like to apply to positions that involve kids, pets, etc. they would need to be "ID verified".
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Personal
Volunteers are asked to list at least 3 unique skills or areas of interest during their account creation. This allows organizations to view their profiles more effectively and volunteers will be able to  have a personalized feed of relevant opportunities.

Research

The Task
To bridge the gap between volunteer opportunities and volunteers and increase community engagement.
Research
We started by interviewing our friends and family about their volunteering experiences. We wanted to figure why they had volunteered in the past, why they currently volunteering, and if they intended to in the future. We identified that there were similar pain points and motives throughout the interviews.
User Personas
The target group are people between the ages of 20-30.
This group is characterized by being:
• Achievement oriented
• Career focused
• Seeking experiences
• Having more spare time
• Collaborative
• Socially connected
• Tech-savvy
• The desire to learn

Sketches

User Flows
I began by creating the following user flows: getting started and checking notifications as these were the minimum viable product in order to receive valuable feedback from our testers.
Ideation
Low fidelity prototypes helped us see what was working and what needed to be changed. After testing it out with users, we noticed that iconography was easier to view and understand instead of extensive lists. As well as clear call to action buttons, app feedback and the need to have a menu present at all times for users to easily navigate back and forward through the features.
Iteration
Our design moved quickly through iterations, we began by using images and uploading them to POP, to low-fidelity prototypes made with InVision and finally a revised version using Adobe XD.

Every step allowed us to continue improving the design.

Features

An onboarding page sets the tone as to what the app is about. This is an important step because it creates trust before the user shares their likes, skills and availability. Some users may be sceptical to provide a photo of their ID early on, so we wanted to ensure they could have the option to skip and add it afterwards.

Once logged in, we thought the easiest way of switching between map and list view would be a small icon button at the bottom of the screen.

The feed gives users relevant results by default based on their interests. If users are looking to specify their results, they can do so by adding filters or doing a search.

After a user applies to an opportunity, we applied Don Norman's principle of feedback to make sure they knew their application had been successful. Nothing is more frustrating than applying for something and asking yourself, "did it go through?" or "should I apply again just in case".

Test out the prototype!

Click image to interact with prototype

Style Guide

Style Iterations

I wanted to keep the style clean using, white, blue and a few gradients. Brand consistency was important, colours, fonts and icons are the same throughout the app.

Finalized Style Guide

Summary & Next Steps
Some of the learnings from this project were:
• Common pain points and motives led us to our most valuable insights
• User testing is vital to the iteration process - our point of view may be different than our users
• Going through the flows can bring up other/new use cases
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Next steps:
• Understanding what metrics we want to track
• Whether the features we have implemented are valuable
• Start experimenting - new features we would like to introduce
• Deepen our understanding of volunteer organizations, their needs and the business
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