< User the slider to see the original homepage vs. our solution >
We concluded that by improving the messaging/visuals, showing the impact of volunteering, clarifying the onboarding process, and finding matching projects, we could recruit a more diverse volunteer pool, increase direct traffic to the site, and increase social media mentions.
Enhance the Code for the City website to better engage and inform a more diverse audience (not only in terms of skills and background, but also demographics) who would be interested in contributing their time and skills to civic hack projects. In addition, your client would also like their organization and its events to become better known overall in the local community.
For the purposes of this sprint, we referenced the Code for San Jose website to be our client website.
Christopher Centers (Me) - Visual Designer
Jackie Ajoux - Project Manager
Michael Struck - Copy Writer
Everyone on the team participated equally in all activities, but we also focused on our individual strengths as well. Since my background is industrial design, I tended toward visual design. Jackie has a strong background in project/program management and Michael has a background in marketing/advertising.
The Diligent Do-Gooder
Problem Statement
We realized, after synthesizing all our research, that our target user had no imagery or supportive content to help them connect with the group. All of the competitors utilized compelling lifestyle shots to spark reactions in their users.
We focused on this sense of belonging throughout the site with images of events, narrative about attending, and why your time matters.
Continuing the idea of will I belong, our research showed that user's had a lot of questions about how they could contribute their skillset and what they could expect while attending an event.
In an effort to answer those questions, we developed an onboarding page designed to walk user's through how to become a volunteer, what resources are used, what a typical event is like, and location information.
Finding the right fit!
User's also felt bogged down finding suitable projects that would match their strengths.
The current site uses GitHub as the depository of documentation and project listings. While this is a cost effective solution, it created a point of friction trying to find projects that both needed help and the type of volunteer they needed.
By creating an inventory of projects on their own page and providing filters, user's are able to quickly find projects that match their skillset, connect to the team members, and have access to the GitHub data.
With the user's time being so important, they needed a strong motivator to convince them to devote the time to volunteering.
So when exploring the idea of the value proposition, we overwhelmingly discovered that volunteers needed to know that their efforts will generate results.
We decided to add a full page dedicated to showing quantifiable information related to the results of volunteering. Items like milestones reached, number of active projects, number of volunteers, and news mentions about the groups impact.
Further refinements
Further refinements
Further refinements
What I enjoyed about this project
What I could have improved
