Hand 'n Hand - A vetted, multilingual system with singular pro-bono services and P2P virtual payment that allows partner nonprofits to send requests to a broad range of donors and volunteers by urgency levels and Geolocation.
Challenge
HMW offer Philanthropy that is accessible to anyone who wants to make a global impact through their time, talent, or resources to supply the needs of social and/or religious workers while spreading goodness in the world?
Solution
A Web-based system where partner charitable organizations make requests on behalf of local communities for micro-volunteering, unskilled pro-bono services, and monetary needs. A dashboard focused on impact measurement and communication. And finally, a vetting process builds up a circle of trust.
HMW offer Philanthropy that is accessible to anyone who wants to make a global impact through their time, talent, or resources to supply the needs of social and/or religious workers while spreading goodness in the world?
Solution
A Web-based system where partner charitable organizations make requests on behalf of local communities for micro-volunteering, unskilled pro-bono services, and monetary needs. A dashboard focused on impact measurement and communication. And finally, a vetting process builds up a circle of trust.
Outcome
A 25-screen prototype was submitted to a Hackathon for development. The client was World Vision Canada.
My role
Solo Product Designer
Design Process
The project started as a 4-week Design Sprint challenge hosted by FaithTech in April 2021, and expanded to 4 months, as I continued working with World Vision on a volunteer basis (Avg: 35h/week). A few constraints are listed below, for better context on operational and technical limitations. Admin/Backend features were not considered for the MVP at this early stage.
Understanding the problem space
Part 1: Competitive Analysis and Secondary Research
The starting point was on competitor websites. Semrush Software, impact reports and articles helped me gain knowledge on their business goals, impact presentation and trends in volunteerism.
Website Inspections: primary and secondary navigation, primary and secondary content, dashboards, checkout, payment and volunteer applications. Search and filters.
Part 2: Stakeholder Meetings and Affinity Diagramming
With the IT and Innovation Directors, we whittled down the vision and expectations for the project with an emphasis on the Requesters' Dashboard, as impact measurement and communication matter to different-level STK. The client had previously conducted user research, so I asked questions, mapped out the data gathered on an Affinity Diagram and converted the findings into JTBD.
Part 3: Ask the Experts
Q.1 Why have we set the specific funds to be the differentiator?
Q.2 How do we verify and communicate where the fund goes?
Q.3 Can the partner be an individual?
Q.4 How did you decide on the scope and positioning?
Q.5 What are the primary languages for this website (global expansion)?
Q.6 What are the KPIs and reports that the platform would provide?
Q.2 How do we verify and communicate where the fund goes?
Q.3 Can the partner be an individual?
Q.4 How did you decide on the scope and positioning?
Q.5 What are the primary languages for this website (global expansion)?
Q.6 What are the KPIs and reports that the platform would provide?
Core Insights
1. Change in volunteers' mindset. Strict selective processes and lengthy applications jeopardize the goodwill of 'inexperienced' or unable-to-travel applicants. Professional-focused volunteerism leaves out a large group of people who believe they do not have much to contribute. Flexible and inclusive jobs onve an impact on innovation.
2. Product innovation. Monetary-focused charities still limit their impact by keeping the relationship between donors and beneficiaries impersonal. Humanized interactions and social-media elements are invaluable in matching the system with the real world.
3. Product innovation. Donors value ethics and transparency in the distribution of funds, so every penny spent should be clearly listed and described to monetary donors.
2. Product innovation. Monetary-focused charities still limit their impact by keeping the relationship between donors and beneficiaries impersonal. Humanized interactions and social-media elements are invaluable in matching the system with the real world.
3. Product innovation. Donors value ethics and transparency in the distribution of funds, so every penny spent should be clearly listed and described to monetary donors.
Journey Mapping
The process, core stressors and opportunities for improvement.
User Personas
Fictional characters that represent real users: Requesters and Supporters.
Built collaboratively on Miro, as the team was among the target audience.
Built collaboratively on Miro, as the team was among the target audience.
Navigation Flows & User Stories
By the end of 4 weeks, I built the user flow and the backlog, based on user and business needs. The following documents helped the Project Manager build the roadmap on Asana.
Requirements & Visual Design
By the end of 2 months, we had the feature requirements and started building the wireframes/prototype for 25 screens in an iterative process. The usability testing was informally conducted among the team members.
For Donors - Donation and volunteerism 'toggles' in the search bar; Social proof nudges: Charity profile, social icons, verification/vetted icons and rating; Add unskilled and remote-only job categories; Allow donors to follow their preferred organizations.
For Requesters - A business account with a social profile and bio, logo image, photos and videos, in addition to the customization of their micro-volunteering/donation requests. The option of privately or publicly sending photos and video reactions from their beneficiary to monetary donors in recognition of their impact. Add a dashboard with data visualization on impact measurement, campaign monitoring and troubleshooting.
For Requesters - A business account with a social profile and bio, logo image, photos and videos, in addition to the customization of their micro-volunteering/donation requests. The option of privately or publicly sending photos and video reactions from their beneficiary to monetary donors in recognition of their impact. Add a dashboard with data visualization on impact measurement, campaign monitoring and troubleshooting.
Accessibility concerns: brightness and contrast, language switch, closed captions, narrator.
Hand-in-Hand receives a 3% commission out of the transactions, and the membership fees charged from partners.
Hand-in-Hand receives a 3% commission out of the transactions, and the membership fees charged from partners.
Style Guide
Precious Learnings...
UX Maturity and Self-guidance
This was my first professional project, after doing a short-term UX course. The team had no UX culture, the project had no UX Lead, and getting the prototype done demanded a considerable learning curve. I had the responsibility to advocate for proper research but was not yet mature to evangelize the team.
Today, a year after this project, having learned various research methods, I would consider in-depth interviews and Contextual Inquiry to complement the Discovery, along with Card Sorting and Crazy8's for data-driven architecture - e.g.: to validate assumptions on micro-volunteering filters and cryptocurrency exchange. I would have also made tons of sketches, a paper prototype and then a responsive prototype. I would have optimized the Dashboard for requesters, supporters and the client separately, with laser-focused Impact sharing, prior to usability testing.
Finally, I believe my team would have greatly benefited from more seniority among us, with a Product Owner, a Senior Designer and a Data Scientist, considering this was a new product to a new audience with significant data management and machine learning complexities. I am grateful though, for this collaborative exercise and for my introduction to Figma. It was a valuable experience that significantly contributed to my development in UX Design.