Creating a A Mobile Volunteering App for Personalized, Flexible, and Impactful Giving
1 of 8 product designers building an app to address the increasing need for community support in the Dallas area.
Project Brief
Design a product that educates Dallas residents about the unique needs of local shelters and provide a seamless experience that fosters increased donations and volunteering.
Approach
Sprint 1 —Interviews, Empathy Mapping, and Personas
Sprint 2— Crazy 8s, Feature Prioritization, and User Flows
Sprint 3—Wireframing, Branding, and Prototyping
My Role
Product Designer, Branding
Client
N/A
Year
2024
Timeline
8 weeks
Team
8 UX Designers
Outcome
We designed a mobile volunteering app that enables busy people to save time with personalized volunteering opportunities, account for schedule changes and conflicts, track their impact, and keep up with other volunteers in an engaging way.
We placed 1st out of 3 teams evaluated on solution, design, and presentation by 3 judges.
Situation
As Texas faces extreme weather, Dallas residents are needed to support their community through donations, volunteering, and charitable shelters for people and animals.
I and 7 other designers were selected amongst 21 students for Dialexa EDU to design a volunteering-centered app to foster increased donations and volunteering in a time where disasters are becoming more frequent.
A competitor analysis to determine what products on market are missing.
Problem
While other volunteering apps exist, it remains difficult for potential volunteers to find local and relevant opportunities in one location—volunteering is largely inconvenient.
After interviewing 2 target audience members, we found that volunteers favor local activities but have difficulty finding them, need to look for several different sources to find opportunities, and struggle to fit volunteering into their schedule.
An empathy map based on our interviews.
Action
We conducted a competitor analysis, interviewed 2 target users, and created an empathy map to guide us as we brainstormed ideas.
After brainstorming, we worked with a software engineer to determine feasibility.
A portion of our feature priority matrix.
Result
To streamline the volunteering process, we designed a centralized resource to help them easily learn about and contribute to local shelters.
BusyBee is a mobile volunteering app that has these core features:
an orientation process that gathers user interests, priorities, and location into personalized volunteering suggestions
a way to connect a user's personal calendar to sync their schedule, notify them of any conflicts, and cancel if needed
a league system and impact tracker to increase user retention and provide feedback on how their support helps others
Impact
BusyBee makes volunteering easy, accessible, and exciting for busy young adults.
The app would make incorporating volunteering and donating into one's life more convenient via:
reducing the time spent searching for opportunities that fit into a user's schedule,
visualizing volunteering opportunities and scheduling them in a "bite-sized," habit-forming way,
and allowing users to see their impact on the community past the event.
When the larger Dallas community is in need, volunteers can easily find what works for their schedule, interest, and abilities to make an impact.
Team Eagle (UNT)
Explore My Other Projects
1 of 3 UX/UI designers designing a web app to support HR in distributing one employee benefit— a set amount of tickets to shows at the Toyota Music Factory.
UX Research
UX/UI Design
Project manager leading a team of 7 to redesign a non-profit website for accessibility, efficiency, and future growth.
Project Management
UX/UI Design