👉 Overview

Currently, American adults aren’t volunteering as much as they used to. The volunteer rate has decreased since the early 2000s (see graph below).

I worked on developing a solution to help adults get involved in local community service.

Graph showing decline in volunteering from 28% in the early 2000's to 25% in 2020.

Volunteering decreasing isn't good for the community. Decreased volunteering can have many effects including:

Image showing effects of less assistance, divestment, disconnections, and individualism.

🔍 Research

To explore this decline, I conducted surveys and uncovered some of the following insights:

Biggest reasons surveyors stated they

haven’t volunteered:

Lack of time
Difficulty finding opportunities

Biggest challenges surveyors have with community service websites/apps:

No contact/FAQ section
Lengthy sign-up process

💡 Ideation

How might we turn volunteering from uninspiring to enticing?

Image showing adjectives under uninspiring and enticing. Uninspiring: less assistance, divestment, disconnections, and individualism. Enticing: more engaging, supportive, connected, and collaborative.

I completed a Crazy Eights exercise to brainstorm ideas that will help address the contact pain point and streamline the sign-up process.

Product Principles

Intuitive

Design clear and straightforward navigation to help users easily find information and complete tasks.

Informative

Include necessary and relevant information in addition to help resources to assist with questions.

User-Centered

Focus on the needs, preferences, and behaviors of target users.

🧪 Usability Study

Findings in wireframes revealed confusion in contact section; needs clarity.

Project information wireframe

Send a message wireframe

✅ Mockups of Enticing Solutions

😀 More engaging

Big visuals makes it easier for users to understand what they’ll be doing and the bookmark helps users identify their interests without having to fully commit to an action right away.

Confirmation screen

💬 Supportive

You can message the coordinator if you have questions or need more details.

Project Information Page

Contact Screen

🔗 Connected

Follow organizations creating volunteer opportunities to stay connected and see future projects.

🤝 Collaborative

See how many others will be volunteering with you and have already registered for a project.

Project Information Page

Recap of an enticing solution

✅ More engaging

✅ Supportive

✅ Connected

✅ Collaborative

⚙️ Solution

Designed screens for desktop web, mobile web, iOS app, and iPad OS app to help users easily find and sign up for local volunteering opportunities based on research.

Image showing ipad, phone, and laptop with different screens of the app/website

Impact:

100% of participants during the app’s high-fidelity usability study were able to successfully complete their journey. Users shared that the app makes it easy to browse and sign up for community services.

One quote from peer feedback: “It has a lot of potential. I think something like this would be good- a specific place to get volunteers.”

What I would do differently:

Research a larger group of people who volunteer and interview them to ask follow-up questions based on survey results.

What I learned:

I realized it’s easy to focus too much on finding “the perfect solution.” Instead, I learned that there are often multiple ways to address a problem. It’s more efficient to choose one idea and test it through usability studies.

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