Connect Crew:
Volunteering made easy for college students and organizations
For many volunteering was a larger aspect of their lives during their high school years. Perhaps due to many schools requiring them, or simply having more time. However, slowly and slowly, it becomes nearly impossible to find time to volunteer especially for college students to balance. Not only that, but the process of finding places to volunteer is an extremely overwhelming process.
But what if there was a solution that made finding volunteering opportunities both easy and convenient? A solution that made it significantly easier for organizations to find reliable volunteers? This is what my team and I decided to design the solution for.
The design for this project is still ongoing (Week 8), but in totality will go through the whole design research and prototyping process.
Create a user-friendly, empathetically designed high-fidelity app prototype for students wanting to volunteer and for volunteering organizations to consolidate opportunities into one convenient spot for eachother.
UI Designer
UX Researcher
Context
3 UI Designers
3 UX Researchers
20-weeks
September 2024 - Present
Figma
Miro
Canva
Timeframe:
Tools:
Team:
Role:
There is a lack of volunteering from college students, and also a lack of available reliable volunteers available for organizations.
In order to actually confirm this is an actual problem college students and organizations faced, we conducted customer research.
Not enough time: College students are unable to fit volunteering into their already busy schedules
Efficiency: Volunteering organizations need more volunteers in a more effective way that are reliable and will actually show when they sign up
How can we confirm this problem?
Full research report here
The Problem
There is a lack of volunteering from college students, and also a lack of available reliable volunteers available for organizations.
In order to actually confirm this is an actual problem college students and organizations faced, we conducted customer research.
Not enough time: College students are unable to fit volunteering into their already busy schedules
Efficiency: Volunteering organizations need more volunteers in a more effective way that are reliable and will actually show when they sign up
How can we confirm this problem?
Full research report here
The Problem
3 Interviews were conducted
Interviews ranged from 15-30 minutes
3 participants were recruited, 2 students and 1 coordinator
Inclusion criteria: current students from UW who have participated in volunteering opportunities in the past, people who agreed to participate in the interviews, and organizations that have experiences in recruiting volunteers
Exclusion criteria: people who have never participated in volunteering events
Method
Results
Condense Opportunities
Our interviewees mentioned that they would really like for all the volunteering opportunities to be condensed in one spot.
The process of finding volunteer opportunities very tiring and unrewarding, as they are forced to go down multiple different avenues in order to find a single volunteering opportunity.
Word of
Mouth
Volunteer organizations, they typically are finding volunteers through word of mouth advertising, or direct contact with potential volunteers
It is not always a reliable method of recruiting because volunteers sometimes do not actually show up for the opportunity
Busy
Schedules
An important commonality across our participants was that they all have busy schedules
College life often leaves minimal room for additional commitments, and volunteering events are likely to have time conflicts with their classes
Personas
Our team then created personas based on the results from the three interviews. This was done in order to better understand pain points and user needs better for college students and volunteer organizations.
User Journey Map
Competitive Analysis
Volunteero: UK app that has potential volunteers search, apply, and volunteer for opportunities
Only works in the UK
Costs organizations money to join
Has no consequences for volunteers if they do not show up to an opportunity they signed up for
VolunteerMatch: A website that potential volunteers can find local volunteering opportunities
Requires a donation from organizations to sign up
Only available in English
Has no consequences for volunteers if they do not show up to an opportunity they signed up for
Mary's Place: A website that potential volunteers can find local volunteering opportunities
Website is difficult to navigate
Has no consequences for volunteers if they do not show up to an opportunity they signed up for
A competivie analysis was conducted by our team in order to understand and ideate a product that has not been created yet, and standout compared to competitors.
Full competitive analysis here
What can we design to solve this problem?
Now that we confirmed from customer research that this is a problem, we moved onto the design stage that address a solution to insights from the competitive analysis and research we conducted.
The idea for this feature is to make finding volunteer opportunities that will suit the potential volunteer's volunteering interests and fit into their schedule as easy as possible. The user would chat with an AI chatbot that will give them a personalized selection of volunteer opportunities.
The idea for this feature on the app is to provide users with volunteering opportunities nearby their current location. This map and notification idea also eases users with the hassle of having to actively look for local volunteering opportunities, as this was a problem that our interviewees said they had. It allows for the search to be done for the user, rather than the other way around.
This calendar sync feature serves as a way to organize events for users so they can better manage their time and plan ahead of time. When users decide on a specific opportunity they want to participate in, the app automatically adds the event to their phone’s calendar, including its date, time, and location. This gives the user a comprehensive view of their schedule, centralizing their to-do list all in one spot.
With the research and design goals in mind, our team concluded that creating an app for volunteers and volunteering organization would be the best system.
Design Goals
App feature storyboards
AI Chatbot:
Opportunity map:
Calendar Sync:
Full design requirements here
#1
Centralize access for how users find volunteering opportunities
#2
Connect college students with volunteering organizations
#3
Encourage students to participate in civic engagement that benefits communities
The next steps…
Currently, our team is on week 8 out of 20 for this case study. Our next step is implementing all our ideas into a prototype using Figma in the coming weeks.
Allyson Dang @ 2024