Project Petals is on a mission to make New York City’s neighborhoods beautiful. This colorful non-for-profit calls upon regular New Yorkers to take part in their communities environment.
Goals
We met with the Founder and CEO of Project Petals to go over what the current process was for both user and administrator. From that discussion we were able to determine the goals for this project.
To Submit Projects
To create a way for people to submit potential projects for review by the local organizers
Sign Up to Volunteer
Rethink and redesign how people signed up for volunteer projects
Display of Projects
To design a way to display ongoing and upcoming projects
Methodology
Research
Mission Model Canvas
Feature Analysis
User Interviews
Persona Development
Journey Mapping
Design
MoSCow Method
Proposed Service Blueprint
Design Studio
Prototyping
Usability Testing
Focus
People want to contribute to their local community, however, there is not a simple, centralized way for people to get connect to opportunities.
How might we facilitate more project proposals and formally connect volunteers to projects?
Research
We utilized the methodology of affinity mapping, which involves pulling quotes and thought processes directly from the interviewees and placing them on individual post-it notes. We then grouped similar data points and determined common themes across the interviews.
Based on our research, we developed two personas that best represent our target audience. We researched our users and synthesized the data to pinpoint trends of pain points from our target users such as a need for discovery, information, motivation and scheduling. From identifying these needs we created the two personas, introducing Ronnie and Ollie.
Findings
Volunteers DISCOVER opportunities informally, through social media or word of mouth
They would like INFORMATION about the event, such as specific tasks or how to prepare
Users want to know about OTHER VOLUNTEERS going to an event
LOCATION matters to the users, as they are more likely to get involved locally both to see the impact of their work and for convenience
Insights to Features
Design
Design Studio
At this point of the process, we conducted a Design Studio with our team. This collaborative process is a way of rapidly generating potential solutions for our problem. By individually sketching, pitching, critiquing and iterating we were able to visualize our ideas and refine our design.
We also did another Design Studio with the founder of Project Petals, Alicia. Together we discussed the current process volunteers need to go through in order to join a project and what features would matter the most to Project Petals.
MoSCoW
The features we decided to build focused on allowing the user to add a project for review and volunteer for a project in the fewest steps needed.
We knew that our design had to be accessible on mobile, but that it didn’t make sense to design a native mobile app. We chose to design a responsive web app that worked as an external site to Project Petals main website.
Task 1
On our first task, we begin with the home page where users will tap on “SUBMIT A PROJECT” This will take the user to answer a simple question, is it a public space or not?
Either answer will take the user to the next request to submit a photos for a better understanding of the project for the administrators through visuals.
Finally users will need to enter location, contact information (for further details if need be) and a brief description of what should be done at the site. After completion, users are taken to a confirmation screen with a motivational pun to “Don’t Stop Be-Leafing”.
Task 2 (Option 1)
Our testers are then prompted to create an account. They will click on the “Sign Up” option to create an account, which will only need a name, email and password.
After the account has been created, users are to fill in their specific profile information that administrators would need to know, to better streamline their workflow, such as the volunteer’s location and preferred skills and experience.
This also helps personalize the relationship between account holders by giving the option for the users to upload a photo and a brief description of themselves.
Task 2 (Option 2)
The initial round of hi-fi testing proved to confuse the testers a little bit. Some of the users continued to tap on “BROWSE EVENTS” and due this occurrence, we wanted to allow all users an alternate route to signing up or in to an account.
When the user wants to volunteer and they are not logged into an account, they will be prompted to “Sign In” or “Sign Up.” If the users tap “SIGN IN” it will take you to the “SIGN IN” screen
Task 3
On the users third task, was to register for an event. Users will tap on “BROWSE EVENTS” which will take them to a map view of surrounding events, if they wanted to see a list view, they simply tap on the “LIST” option where all the events are listed.
These event pages are clickable and once the page opens up, users are able to view the details of the event and have the option to register for the event by tapping “VOLUNTEER.”
Afterwards a confirmation screen shows confirming the registration and let’s the user know that “No Good Seed Goes Unnoticed”
