user research,
wireframing,
graphic design,
prototyping
Figma
Photoshop
8 weeks
(Nov-Dec 2021)
We all know that volunteering at a young age has many benefits, like devloping important life skills, discovering a passion, or simply giving back in an effort to make a positive impact on the community. Unfortunately, many high schoolers miss out on these opportunities, due to their inability to find volunteering events that are both, interesting and accessbile to them. Besides, most students lack the motivation to find community service opportunities, due to the long and effortful process of finding the right ones.
In an effort to fill this existing gap, and increase the amount of highschool volunteerism, I plan to design a solution that streamlines the volunteering experience for high school students.
Increase the amount of high school students that successfully volunteer in their community on a regular basis.
To ensure that my solution was superior to existing volunteering apps, in both content and experience, I conducted a competitive analysis on three established volunteering apps: Golden, Point, & Just Serve.
Specifically, I wanted to gain deeper insights into each platform's flows, functions, and features. Understanding these aspects within my competition would allow me strategically design a solution that built upon existing ones.
After identifying several problems that exist within current volunteering discovery options, I deployed a survey to gather more insights from high school students.
I conducted three semi-structured interviews with current high school students to learn more about the painpoints surrounding current volunteering discovery methods and their volunteering habits. I used this interaction as a means of brainstorming a ditial solution for the problem.
The purpose of these interviews was to gauge whether:
Insights:
I used interview and survey responses to construct a persona that captures the frustrations and desires of a typical high school student looking to gain volunteering experience.
The user persona defined above served as a great tool, allowing me to reassure my design decisions throughout the entire process. The persona was especially useful in the beginning stages of ideation, when I first started to brainstorm solutions that solved Justin's frustrations, and answered his needs and desires.
I want to design a digital solution that acts as a one-stop volunteering platform for students. Interviews revealed that an on-the-go solution, such as a mobile app, would be most accessible to students.
While writing these statements, ideas for designing their implementation came rushing in. I was able to visualize the perfect volunteering app for students, one that serves as a hub for volunteering exploration and needs.
To finally bring my ideas to file, I sketched each screen defined in the user flow above. These sketches helped me establish the app's information architecture and overall navigation. I planned to convert these sketches into wireframes, and conduct some user testing to confirm the design's layout.
I want to design a digital solution that acts as a one-stop volunteering platform for students. Interviews revealed that an on-the-go solution, such as a mobile app, would be most accessible to students.