RESEARCH
The research phase is a combination of several research techniques we implemented to garner a better understanding of our problem space and our users. Combining our data from our semi-structured interviews, competitive analysis and fly-on-the-wall observation we were able to synthesize the research to inform the creation of our user personas and user journey map. This phase helped to understand our users, empathize with them and identify their motivations and pain points.
01 Interviews
We conduct a series of semi-structured interviews on both graduate and undergraduate students at the University of Washington who have had volunteering experience to better understand the issues they were facing. The flow of semi-structured interviews helped us talk about several areas of importance as we were in an exploratory phase. The interviews allowed us to identify and begin defining our problem space.
Takeaways
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Students are often too busy to go out of their way to look for volunteering opportunities
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Students are too specific in their academic needs to easily find the right volunteering positions
02 Competitive Analysis
We decided to look at all platforms that our interviewees used to find volunteering opportunities and research other applications that were popular in this space. We review the official websites of the United Way of King County, VolunteerMatch, Handshake, and the Golden Volunteer mobile application. After analyzing their features we could identify what was working for these applications and more importantly what was wrong with them. Linking these pain points back to our findings from the user interviews allowed us to start focusing in on our problem space.
Takeaways
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Poor filter options preventing users from finding specific volunteer opportunities
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No variety of opportunities
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Confusing search process hampers the user experience
03 Fly-on-the-wall Observation
To supplement our user research, we also conducted an observation of physical volunteering platforms in the form of Resident Student Organization (RSO) tables across campus. This is where RSOs advertise their organizations and available volunteering positions to passersby. By employing the fly-on-the-wall method we could study how both current volunteers and potential volunteers (table visitors) interact at these physical platforms.
Takeaways ​
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Students are more likely to volunteer when there’s an incentive involved
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Students are more likely to volunteer with organizations that are a part of their community
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Students were able to attract more potential volunteers when an interactive activity was present
04 Synthesizing Research
After conducting all our research, we gathered all our data and created an affinity map. Doing so, we were able to synthesize this research into categories to attain a comprehensive understanding of our users, their motivations and their pain points. We found that many students are open to the idea of volunteering, but are held back due to a busy schedule or disorganized volunteering platforms and confusing systems. The most important thing that we learned from synthesizing our research was that our user group contained a variety of opposing viewpoints. This was concerning until we realized that we had two types of users: Passively looking students and Actively looking students.
05 Personas
Based on our accumulated research, we decide to create two personas, Anna and Bob, to represent the two main types of student volunteers in our user group—active and passive. By creating these two fictional characters, we could establish “the user” and solidify their different pain-points to help develop our product around. The scenario outlines for our personas guided us through creating our Journey map in the next step.
06 Journey Map
We built our journey map around our persona Anna's scenario. This journey follows Anna in her pursuit of finding a volunteering opportunity. It takes a comprehensive look into all the methods and platforms she interacts with in order to find a volunteering position that fits her needs. The map is based on the experiences of our interviewees (01), although we did make assumptions in places about what was going through Anna's head and about her emotional state. By capturing the step-by-step touchpoints along Anna’s experience, we can empathize with her. Simultaneously, we can map out the areas of high stress to better inform our design. This process was crucial in developing our design requirements as we now knew what areas to target.
Takeaways ​
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Active User is stressed when they can't find a position that matches their needs
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Active User gets stressed when they have to constantly check multiple websites
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Active User listens to peers recommendations