Sharity
Sharity is a mockup created with my group and to bring non-profits and volunteers together. Non-profits can say when and what they need help with and volunteers can pick and choose what works with their schedule.
The Challenge
Non-Profit organizations need help running events and keeping up with day to day tasks. With limited resources, many organizations rely on word of mouth as a means for reaching out to new members or volunteers. Our challenge was to create a centralized website where non-profits can sign up their organization along with available slots or needs they may have in order to reach the maximum number of individuals in the area who may be able to help as well as promote their organization within the community.
Each project group member conducted focus group interviews and ran a demo with five people who ranged in age from 19-52 and fell into one of the following three categories:
The Avid Volunteer - someone who volunteers multiple times in a week
The Occasional Volunteer - someone who volunteers once or twice a month to perhaps only on the occasional event
The Non-User - someone who has little to no familiarity with volunteering for organizations within the community
Research
Based on our user interviews, we found that the features that users wanted most from sharity were the ability to find organizations based on location and type, save events for personal access, ability to sign up for multiple shifts at once, and donate through the site.
Each Group member focused on building out one feature from list of possible features that we gathered during our research.
Wireframes
Mockups
The first set of mockups were designed collaboratively in PowerPoint to ensure that everyone in the group had a similar understanding of the website's flow and features based on skill level before I changed the designs in Adobe XD.
Our usability tests revealed a number of problems with the website's navigation and phrasing. We chose to add the Home Page option within the navigation bar when exiting the home page after running focus groups where people showcased higher ease. Other helpful comments that can be implemented include allowing the user to choose multiple times when at the volunteer homepage instead of only choosing one as well as giving indication of what they have selected. Their main issues were with returning to the homepage or wanting to go back after volunteering, which we found to be a common theme in subsequent tests as well.
I made the decision to add additional options for people to click and add multiple dates in one go. I also chose to change our brand colors to reflect the environment and invoke a sense of calmness. In an effort to make the wording and function behind each page clearer and more inviting to the user, I also chose to clean up the design by adding shadows showcasing specific elements as closer to the person and to make the website more visually appealing and visual changes once a volunteer time was clicked. I also moved the about us section from the home page to a separate page to make the experience less overwhelming for people using the website.
High Fidelity Prototype
Click here to see the updated prototype
We learned that our assignment as a whole lacked dialogue, as in it did not have many instructional or explanatory words to guide the user. We decided to add more clarifying texts in areas such as adding volunteering time-slots to their schedule. Our feedback questioned how far in advance someone could sign up for. By stating “All available slots given by the organization,” we hoped to show that there is no right or wrong answer for how little or far in advance slots would reach as they are created based on the organizations needs and when they must be met.”