Charity Buddy is a startup dedicated to transforming the way people engage with charitable giving in Canada. With a mission to simplify the donation process, the app strives to raise awareness about diverse causes and inspire users to make thoughtful, impactful contributions, and encourage users to be proactive and intentional about charitable decisions.
Despite the increasing number of charitable organizations and causes, many potential donors struggle to discover and engage with the right opportunities for giving.
Challenges include:
• Difficulty in finding and accessing a diverse range of charities
• Understanding their missions, and easily contributing to specific campaigns
• Feeling overwhelmed, and discouraged by choice overload
• Potential unreliability in organizations
Design a streamlined platform that enables donors to quickly connects users with causes they care about, understand their mission, simplify the donation process, and motivates proactive and informed giving.
Research
The user research stage of Charity Buddy’s development process included conducting user interviews, surveys, and usability tests with three key personas types:
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Leaders in charitable organizations
To understand their current campaign process and methods they use to connect with donors
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Individuals who actively donate
To understand their methods in following campaigns, active giving, any pain points, and motivations
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Individuals who don't actively donate
To understand why not- what holds them back, any challenges, and pain points
Based on initial user interviews, we identified key motivations and pain points that would guide the design of the app. Through affinity mapping, we were able to summarize these to:
Finally, we conducted usability testing to gather feedback on the app’s designs and core features. We observed how they interacted with the app, asked for feedback, and whether this would ease the pain points they currently experience.
Final Designs
The following sections contain key features of the app that aim to solve the key pain points and motivators identified.
Discovering charities and causes users care about
To help users discover the right charities and campaigns that align with their values, we decided to jump right into that by asking them these questions during the onboarding process. This enables us to create a personalized profile for each user, allowing us to recommend organizations and causes that match their interests. By doing so, we reduce the choice overload users tend to face, making it easier for users to identify and support the charities that they wish to support.
Building trust and enabling transparency
To help users discover the right charities and campaigns that align with their values, we decided to jump right into that by asking them these questions during the onboarding process. This enables us to create a personalized profile for each user, allowing us to recommend organizations and causes that match their interests. By doing so, we reduce the choice overload users tend to face, making it easier for users to identify and support the charities that they wish to support.
Simplifying the donation process
To help users discover the right charities and campaigns that align with their values, we decided to jump right into that by asking them these questions during the onboarding process. This enables us to create a personalized profile for each user, allowing us to recommend organizations and causes that match their interests. By doing so, we reduce the choice overload users tend to face, making it easier for users to identify and support the charities that they wish to support.
Motivating donors
To help users discover the right charities and campaigns that align with their values, we decided to jump right into that by asking them these questions during the onboarding process. This enables us to create a personalized profile for each user, allowing us to recommend organizations and causes that match their interests. By doing so, we reduce the choice overload users tend to face, making it easier for users to identify and support the charities that they wish to support.
Prototype
Check out the full prototype here
Takeaways
Working with this startup was an incredibly meaningful experience, as I am deeply passionate about charitable giving and supporting communities. Through extensive research, I gained valuable insights into the industry and refined my designs through multiple iterations, ultimately creating solutions that resonated with users and met their needs.
