Helping a Non-Profit Grow Its Reach. — A UX Case Study
We all have different ways of making the space that we live in feel like home. We treasure those spaces and we get frustrated when that space is not taken care of. How about our neighborhood, our home for our home? What happens when the beauty of our neighborhood is in a poor state and needs some TLC? Is there a way we can keep our neighborhoods beautiful? Alicia and Project Petals met the above needs exactly.
The Business
Project Petals is on a mission to make New York City’s neighborhoods beautiful. This colorful non-profit inspires New Yorkers to take part in their communities’ environment. Project Petals focuses on serving communities that have limited resources. They offer hands-on projects and workshops surrounding the enhancement of our public spaces.
The Goal
We worked with Alicia, the CEO to set three goals for this project. First, create a way for people to submit potential projects. The second was to redesign how people signed up for volunteer projects. And the third, was the design, a way to display ongoing projects.
Research
We began by talking to six people about their experiences around volunteering. These were friends of friends who were familiar with the process of signing up as a volunteer. We asked them why they like to volunteer and what information they like to have beforehand. We also asked them how they find out about volunteer opportunities.
The feedback we received fit into three categories:
The first, people joined a project after hearing about it from friends or seeing a post on social media.
Second, volunteers didn’t have a lot of information about the project ahead of time. One detail volunteers wanted to know before showing up was who they would be doing the project with.
Finally, people would join a project that was closer to home than one that required them to travel.
Ronnie, The Regular Volunteer
We needed to better understand the user data we received from our interviews. We pulled together our user data to mirror a fictional person. Meet Ronnie, the regular volunteer.
Ronnie likes to volunteer in her community so that she can see the fruits of her labor. When she joins a project, she makes it her business to know who she will be volunteering with. Before the big day she will contact the organizer for a list of supplies she would need to bring.
The Current Journey
We thought about the current sign-up process that Project Petals uses. We visualized Ronnie’s experience as she submitted and volunteered for a project. We then identified a few obstacles that would frustrate Ronnie.
First, she spots an abandoned lot that has become an eyesore to the neighborhood. She thinks it’s the perfect opportunity for Project Petals. She gets frustrated when there isn’t somewhere to submit the proposal.
Second, she gets confused about how to sign-up to volunteer. The form is vague and she isn’t able to sign-up for the project she wants to.
On the day of the project, she freaks out when she realizes she has no clue what she will be doing once she gets there. The fact that she doesn’t know who will be there doesn’t help anything.
In our process, we want to make sure the problem we are solving is the right one. Our research showed us that people wanted to help Project Petals but they didn’t have a centralized way to do it. We asked ourselves how might we get more project submissions and connect volunteers to projects?
The Solution
We ran a design workshop with Alicia, the CEO. The goal was to sketch ideas that would address Ronnies frustrations. Alicia brought a fresh perspective to our process. She had us consider how our ideas would be valuable to her organization.
Our solution was a website that asked Ronnie to submit a project in only a few steps. She can also view a list of ongoing projects. Each project spelled out the tasks and who else would be there.
The website would be responsive. The site would adjust its content to the size of the screen it is being viewed on. The design would be inexpensive to build. It also allowed Alicia to build it out in stages. Our goal was to ensure the site would launch by removing obstacles of time and resources.
Design
First Prototype
Our prototype was simple. We left out color and photos. We wanted to focus on the utility of our design and remove any distracting elements. We wanted to test our design with real people. We tested five participants with three tasks.
The first task was to submit a project.
The second was to create an account and set your volunteer preferences.
The final task was to volunteer for a project.
The results told us that we were on the right track. People understood the value of the website and how to use it. Our results also showed us that people were having a hard time creating an account. That process was cumbersome and people got lost.
Final Design
We used our test results to create a second prototype. This time, We redesigned how people signed up by placing a sign-up button on the dashboard. This improved the success rate for account creation by 100%. We did a second round of testing. The results showed that this solution followed the natural steps someone would take.
In the initial design, Ronnie would sign up by tapping the account icon in the top right. We had overlooked usability standards to remove items from the dashboard. We learned this was too great a sacrifice. In the final design, Ronnie would find the option signup to be more direct.
We used a style guide that referenced the brands existing colors and fonts. We tested those colors against accessibility guidelines. We made sure that someone with a visual impairment would be able to use the site.
Moving Forward
The next step would be to design the admin view. Here are a few things to consider in the design. Project organizers should be able to view submitted projects and add details to them. They should also have access to volunteer preferences and contact information.
Our design empowered current and future volunteers to help Project Petals. To help keep New York City’s neighborhoods beautiful. To make our neighborhood feel like home.
Our Team
This project was done in collaboration with Rebbeca Farber, Adi Fine, and Preston Tang.
