Giving Talents
My Role
UX/UI Designer – Visual Design, Rapid Prototyping, User Interviews
Timeline
Oct. to Nov. ’23 – 3 weeks (out of a 5 week challenge)
Overview
I joined a design challenge midstream, partnering with a team that did not have a UX/UI designer. Our team’s goal was to create a suitable innovation to make the sharing of talents, skills or resources seamless and scalable.
Background
Early October, I learned about FaithTech Create: a design challenge that pairs non-profits with developers and designers to produce solutions in 5 weeks. By the time I learned about it, the challenge was in full swing. However, I was so motivated by their purpose and projects I jumped in midstream, joining a team that did not have a UX/UI designer to assist with whatever they might need during the remaining weeks.
Stakeholder Alignment
When I joined, the team was blocked. The non-profit stakeholder and team were looking for solutions to create a suitable innovation to make the sharing of talents, skills or resources seamless and scalable. The group had spent the previous weeks discussing the problem and challenges at hand, but without the clarity of what kind of users they would be serving or how they might do so.
The first thing I did when joining the team was seeking to understand what they had discussed and understand the stakeholder’s research and aims. Through stakeholder interviews, I assisted in defining personas based on the stakeholder’s previous research and the team’s discussion.
Image by storyset on Freepik
"The Able"
The Able is the person who is in a place to be able to give their time, talents, and/or resources to someone else. The Able may or may not have their own needs that need to be met.
Image by storyset on Freepik
"The Needing"
The Needing is the person who has a need requiring time, talents, or resources. The Needing may or may not be in a place to give their time, talents, and/or resources to someone else.
Image by storyset on Freepik
"The Non-Profit"
The Non-Profit is the organization whose purpose is to multiply the giving of the Able and meet the needs of the Needing. In order to multiply giving, The Non-Profit needs the time, talents, and resources of the Able. The Non-Profit’s reach goes beyond the Able and can reach the Needing both near and far.
Low-Fidelity Design
After determining the next steps with the team, I drew up some initial sketches of a perceived flow that met our criteria. One of the most important factors we discussed was the security and verification of users – because the Needing are a potential vulnerable group, we discussed strict security measures. I assembled the sketches into low-fidelity screens on Figma to make sure our team was in alignment. After their initial feedback, I made further revisions.
Low-fidelity user flow
High-Fidelity Design
With the limited time remaining in the challenge, as a team we determined to make a simple high-fidelity flow as a proof of concept to test with users. I chose and adapted a design system that had the core components needed for our solution, and designed a high-fidelity prototype to use as an artifact.
User Interviews
The stakeholder had preselected 10 candidates for user testing, and suggested we send the prototype for their feedback. I pressed that based on the time constraints and the scope of feedback we were looking to gather it would better suit us to conduct a group interview. Because we all operated remotely, the interview was conducted over zoom. Only 5 participants attended, and we walked through the prototype and asking questions to gauge their understand of functionality, potential features, and overall feedback of the concept.
Initial feedback to the solution was positive, and our assumption about security being a priority was validated.
Key Insights
ID verification and security is a major desire, but what type is unclear
The biggest validation was the desire for ID verification and security to be taken seriously. The internet is full of bad actors and everyone was in agreement that for a platform like this, verification or other means would be vital for user protection.
However, what wasn’t clear was the method. The idea of real ID verification (using government issued ID) was unilaterally rejected, but no verification was unacceptable. Further research and testing will be needed.
Control over communication is an important factor
Beyond verification and security, the group expressed that having the ability to manage and control how and when they communicate was an important and necessary feature.
Even if someone isn’t a “bad actor,” it may not be someone they feel comfortable with or want to interact with at all.
User-generated content should look more like user-generated content
The group had mixed feelings about how the information was presented. Anne and another participant correctly identified how interacting with a post would function, and expressed they liked the design and its simplicity. Dan felt that it didn’t seem to match other social media platforms, giving Facebook as an example.
When the prototype opened up to the Sign-In prompt, Dan immediately expressed his distaste for it while Anne and Mary felt it was the right call.
More testing and research will need to be done to find the right balance of meeting user expectations of what the site should be while protecting users’ privacy.
Results
We submitted the high-fidelity prototype for review along with a short summary of the work completed over the 5 weeks. The submission was reviewed by the challenge organizers and sponsors, who would award the winners at a celebration event. Out of the 13 teams submitting projects, our team won “Best Design” based on the criteria of best UX/UI and visual aesthetic.
🎉 Our team won "Best Design" out of 13 projects 🎉
We were awarded a scholarship to put towards continued development costs of the project. Any continued work is on a volunteer basis, and our team’s desire was to pursue the vision we laid out. Our team’s first goal is to conduct additional user research to with quality users to validate our assumptions.
Key Takeaways
Just jump in
I heavily debated joining the challenge because it had already started. Waiting for the next challenge in a few months time seemed convenient, and I assumed it would have been more helpful to any team I might’ve joined.
What I didn’t expect that jumping in was the most helpful thing I could do. Don’t wait to offer help, if you can.
Leadership is vital
One of the challenges we faced was working together as a team without clear leadership. While everyone on the team had a voice, no particular person was in an authority position to set our trajectory – this slowed us down. By articulating the research into actionable steps, I filled the gap needed.
In scenarios with low or flat power dynamics, choosing someone to act as the admin or manager is vital. It’s not about power – it’s about articulating decisions and next steps to keep the team moving forward.