Role

Product Designer
User Researcher

Timeline

Nov-Jun 2022

Platform

VolunteerMatch iOS App

Tools

Figma, Miro, Zoom, Slack

Overview

At VolunteerMatch, we help volunteers to find a cause and connect with various organizations worldwide for both remote & in-person volunteering opportunities.

Challenge

To understand the users' problems and pain points with the current website while exploring new volunteering causes and proposing a solution for the new iOS app.

What I Did?

CURRENT MOBILE WEB EXPERIENCE

APP DESIGN

KPIs

Research

Competitive Analysis
The goal of this competitive analysis was to understand:
Key Insights
Recommendations for VolunteerMatch
User Research
Conducted a survey and user interviews to understand the pain points and goals of the volunteers while looking/applying for volunteering opportunities.
Imported the data from research

Problem Statement

Users don’t feel confident applying for an opportunity because they don’t find relevant information needed on the Opportunity Details page. They also believe that the current website fails to provide a modern, personalized experience and has usability issues.

Solution

To provide our volunteers with a structured, informative, familiar, and frictionless experience that would result in better decision-making while selecting a volunteering opportunity.

Persona

The user persona is based on the user interviews I conducted that helped me understand the user’s expectations, concerns, and motivations.

User Journey

Next, I created user journey maps to narrate a story about the actions of my personas to achieve a goal. It also helped me to visualize the users’ experiences while interacting with the app.

Initial Ideation

Based on my research findings, I started with some initial sketches followed by mid-fidelity wireframes to focus on the high-level functionality of the core features of the Opportunity details.

Opportunity Details (Remote & In-person)

Usability Test

Conducted a remote moderated usability testing with 6 potential users to understand how they navigate and complete a few tasks efficiently.
The high-level research goals were:
Designs Tested

Opportunity Details Page - Remote

Opportunity Details Page - In-person

Organization Page

Review Page

View Prototype
Task Findings
Participants provided mixed feedback on the Opportunity Details Page - Description Section
  • Participants preferred the preview of the Organization, date posted & share & save options
  • All participants expected to find duration under Roles & Responsibilities
  • They liked the Suggested skills as it helps them to scan through the opportunity
  • A few participants strongly felt that both Report & Inquire CTAs should be placed below Roles & Responsibilities
  • Participants liked that they can set an alert for similar opportunities
  • All participants found Relevant opportunities & sticky CTA helpful
Participants provided positive feedback on the Opportunity Details Page - Organization Section
  • Participants found the Overview of the organization helpful with its website link, when it was founded, no. of employees, and location etc.
  • They liked the video, detailed info, and Mission Statement about the organization, which saves a lot of research on their end
  • 4/6 participants missed the Active opportunities
  • 3/6 felt that Reviews under both Description and Organization are redundant
  • They felt that the overall page was pretty straightforward and in hierarchical order

Iteration

Worked on the next iterations based on the user research findings to improve the app’s usability, functionality, and consistency for an enhanced experience. This will give our volunteers a sense of confidence while applying for various opportunities.

NOTE:  Moved REVIEWS under Organization since users’ strongly felt that it is more organization-specific than any particular opportunity. If there is a new Opportunity posted for the first time then there would be no reviews for that.

Key Features

Opportunity Details
Volunteers not only get all the relevant details about the selected opportunity & organization but also can save them for future reference.
Apply
Sticky Apply CTA is visible on the screen at all times as the user scrolls through the opportunity details so that as soon as they have made the decision to apply, the button is right there.
Reviews
Applicants can read the reviews of past volunteers about the organization and also write a review about their own experience once they have completed their volunteering.

Final Designs

Design Handoff

Once the designs were at the final stage, I collaborated with the dev team to help them understand the interactions and design decisions. I have used Figma’s Inspect to hand off the designs to the dev team.

Learnings