Project Open Hand
Simplifying signups to get more volunteers in the community
ROLE
UX ResearcherUI Designer
TIMEFRAME
Two-week sprint
TOOLS
Figma, Google Forms
PHASES
Research & Synthesis
Business and customer interviews, identifying the user, defining the problem
Ideation & Delivery
Building out a solution, rapid prototyping, usability testing
PROBLEM
Project Open Hand is a nonprofit organization that provides meals to seniors and other critically ill members of the community, but their website does not have an easy way for volunteers to sign up so they struggle to schedule and attract volunteers.
CHALLENGE
Our challenge was to restructure the pre-existing information on the site to create a more streamlined volunteer sign-up process.
Phase 1
Research
Contextual inquiries
We first started with contextual inquiries to create a baseline understanding of how users navigate the site in its current state.
Card sorting
Later, I held open and closed card sorting exercises to better understand the site's information architecture.
Surveys
Next, a series of two surveys were sent out to get insights of both users and potential users of a volunteer portal.
Interviews
After interviewing respondents of the surveys and the volunteer recruiter for Project Open Hand, we were able to understand our target users' needs.
Survey Results
(150+ respondents)
Synthesis + Trends
We found that people value their time, and while they are motivated to use it to help others, they want to know that it is being managed wisely and effectively.
With a few notable exceptions, volunteering is largely a social event.
This prospective volunteer varies in terms of experience. They are motivated to help and give back to their community with the condition that their time is managed well and their security is respected.
Our audience
The prospective volunteer...
Additional Interviews
We also interviewed two volunteer coordinators - one at Project Open Hand and one at another local nonprofit. By speaking to the experts in the field, we were able to better understand their challenges when trying to recruit volunteers.
Greater Chicago Food Depository
Volunteer Coordinator
Project Open Hand
Volunteer Recruiter
Phase 2
Ideation and Contextual Inquiries
Highlight community
During initial mockups for the landing page, we wanted to be sure to keep the sense of community that we learned is a major aspect of Project Open Hand. To highlight this component, I included a Volunteer Spotlight to showcase the volunteers that help the organization run smoothly.
Phase 3
User Testing
We tested the designs with five of the survey respondents who had also volunteered in the past.
Takeaways
Poor accessibility
Low contrast between text and the background colors hindered accessibility.
Difficult navigation
Accessibility was also affected by too many dropdown menus, which hid some of the important navigation items.
Phase 4
Delivery
We redesigned the homepage to make the header more descriptive of the organization's mission. We also added a section that calls attention to the most pressing volunteer needs with a quick sign up form to get notified of new opportunities. Project Open Hand consistently has a problem filling volunteer spots, so we hoped to solve that problem by calling attention to the opportunities on the homepage and adding a "Volunteer Spotlight" to showcase volunteers and their positive experiences.
Volunteer Overview Page
On the Volunteer page, we wanted to provide as much context and information as possible for the various volunteer opportunities. We wanted to show that there are volunteer opportunities for everyone - regardless of their schedules.
Full prototype
Key Considerations
Filters and transparency
Transparent volunteer opportunity listings allow users to find and reserve relevant opportunities based on interests, location, and date preferences.
Familiar patterns
The new site uses familiar structures seen in common restaurant reservation mobile apps, such as the ability to reserve based on criteria and group size.
Conclusion + Reflection
Although it was only a two-week sprint, I'm proud of everything my team was able to accomplish. During the sprint, I learned a lot about accessibility and its role in creating inclusionary experiences, especially for a nonprofit audience.
Looking back, we focused heavily on initial research which made the entire design process simpler. We were able to interview competitors, the volunteer recruiter from Project Open Hand, and around 10 previous volunteers which gave a deep insight to who we were helping. We kept going back to the research along the way to be sure we were staying true to the target user which really helped the project stay on course. We also felt it was important to ask questions outside of a digital product to understand the users behaviorally and find their true motivations.
If we had more time, we would have incorporated a more thorough design system in order to make development faster and easier. If we had been tasked with redesigning the entire site, a design system and style guide would have been the natural place to start before designing the individual pages.
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