Case study: Designing for social good- My final UX case study for the Google career certificate : Course 7
By Avinash Pillai
Project Background:
“The Central Statistical Institute of India announced in 2009 that there were 3.3 million NGOs registered in India, or one NGO for every 400 Indian citizens. IN 2020, Guide Star India (GSI) has more than 10,000 verified NGOs and more than 1,600 certified NGOs on its portal.”
An initial poll conducted with NGO workers and community leaders suggested that these NGOs often struggle with a general lack of volunteers for social initiatives. Mr. Neeraj an active member of a popular NGO in Banglore city said,
“We only barely scratch the surface, if we had more volunteers we would be able to make a better impact.”
Another interview participant Mr. Lokesh said:
“We try our best. but we are often shorthanded. India is a large country and we have a lot of struggling people. A LOT. Between issues of funding , questioned credibility and the number of struggling people, I am not surprised that we can barely scratch the surface.”
While the problem here. seems to be apparent the dissonance between the number of NGOs vs the apparent lack of volunteers points to a more deep routed issue. I attempted to arrive at the route cause via my research.
My Role: UX-UI Designer, complete end to end execution of design prompt.
Project Duration: July-August 2021 (1 Month)
RESEARCH
Methodology:
- The primary research conducted attempted to understand the perception of volunteerism and social work in the eyes of the Indian youth. This was achieved via interviews and surveys on social media.
- As India is a large country with nuanced differences in language , culture and economic circumstances , I attempted to get statistically significant insights around people’s perception of social work and volunteering. This was achieved via comprehensive secondary research, analyzing sociological papers around volunteerism and social work.
- This was followed by creating user personas and subsequently defining our problem statement.
Research Goal:
- To understand public perceptions of social work and volunteering in India.
- Identifying trends, challenges and synergizing factors for volunteering.
RESULT
Primary Research: I surveyed 50 participants and conducted 8 user interviews. The sample was inclusive and age agnostic. I was careful and tried to include users from different states and backgrounds in the Indian subcontinent.
A. Willingness to volunteer:
B. Reasons for volunteering and common ways to volunteer:
In a nutshell the research conducted suggests that people are generally keen on volunteering their time towards social work, then why does their seem to be an overall deficiency in volunteers among NGO workers?
The answer to my question can be found in a sociological study of the perceptions of volunteering and social work in India.
Secondary Research Insights:
In a paper titled: “Why volunteers can’t volunteer” By Dr Mehtab Nasreen. Dr Nasreen surveyed a sample of 5000 participants, uniformly spread across the Indian subcontinent. The survey was administered via questionnaires distributed via a network of volunteers. Samples were also collected via phone call from certain states. The findings from her work have been cataloged in different buckets below:
Willingness to volunteer:
- 85.3 % have volunteered in some or other form, while 14.7 % never volunteered
- 99.1% of people like volunteering and want to volunteer if they’ll get an opportunity.
Challenges Faced:
- 62% of respondents cited lack of family support as a challenge
- 43% of respondents also cited a lack of awareness regarding opportunities as a challenge.
- Inability to manage time was also a common challenge faced by 40% of the survey participants.
Public Perceptions:
- “83 % of the people admitted that they have received criticism from their parents and friend circle that volunteering was a waste of time. But the criticism was less when they were volunteering for a structured organizations like UNV, NSS and NYKS.”
- “79% people feel that volunteering can be promoted by having a proper accreditation framework. Some stated that more support is received from immediate family and friends when the volunteering activity is being associated with renowned organizations — commonly cited examples given were “Swachh bharat summer internship”
USER PERSONAS:
IDEATION
Part 1: Framing the Problem
Q1. How might we, bring together community leaders, NGOs and the common people to bring about a unified social change?
Q2. How might we, increase awareness of volunteering opportunities and social issues in a hyperlocal way?
Q3. How might we, institutionalize a culture of helping out in a country where social work is considered a “waste of time”?
Q4. How might we, legitimize the authenticity and positive impact created from volunteering?
Part 2: Brainstorming solutions:
A cross platform tool that drives awareness and education while bridging the gap between NGOs and communities to enable users to find or drive social good in their communities.
Sketching (Crazy 8s)
The Mantra: Educate — Synergize — Collaborate (Design Guide)
DESIGN PHASE
Approach: Progressive Enhancement (Small →Large)
Step1: Using the Mantra as a compass to guide my design approach, I decided to start by creating a dedicated mobile app. Designing for the core functionalities of the platform focused on leveraging existing synergies and collaboration.
Step 2: A responsive website that will drive education and app downloads to ultimately onboard people onto the ecosystem.
Reminder: Our users are people of the community and NGO workers. Both parties use mobile devices as their daily drivers to get tasks done. The above target users also use desktop computers or laptops to achieve complex, sensitive tasks and regular internet browsing.
Hence it is necessary to design for specific use cases that will accomplish each goal on the Mantra.
DEDICATED MOBILE APP DESIGN:
Sitemap: I started my design process by first outlining the core functionalities of the mobile app on a sitemap. Since the mobile app and responsive website are symbiotic to the overall user experience , designing them simultaneously helped me keep the big picture in mind.
Post this, I started sketching wireframes for the main pages of the user journey , for the mobile app: Below are the finalized wireframes for main pages and proposed user flows:
Wireframing:
Learning <Note>: Wireframing enriches the ideation process and taking notes while wireframing helped me iron outer the finer nuances of the core functionalities and user flows.
Final digital wireframes:
USABILITY TESTING 1.0 :
Research Brief:
The following study will focus on the user journey across the various elements of the mobile app.
1. We want to understand how simple it is for a users to complete key tasks with the app.
2. It will also enable us to get some early feedback on the features and planned functionality of the tool.
Research Tasks:
· Identify bottlenecks in flow to simplify the journey
Research Findings:
I have a comprehensive note taking system that allows me to catalog identified trends , prioritization and action items. In addition to the above, the system allows for smooth collaboration and information sharing with other team members. Below is a snapshot of the research findings:
ITERATE — RECREATE — ENRICH
After identifying bottlenecks and improvement opportunities, I took a cyclical approach of enriching designs while adding or removing elements to fix P0 and P1 action items. This allowed me to quickly improve prototype fidelity while continuously taking feedback from our users.
Iterative enrichment:
High-Fidelity Mockups:
Responsive Website Design:
The Mantra: Educate — Synergize — Collaborate (Design Guide)
Once I was done designing the dedicated mobile app, it was time to start work on the responsive website. Circling back to the design mantra, the app was designed around collaboration and synergy. To complete the user experience it was necessary to properly articulate the use case for the responsive website.
How might we build a platform that educates and equips users with the information and skills required for social work?
How might we drive downloads and onboard users onto the app and consequently the entire ecosystem?
Determining the Use Case:
The responsive website will empower users with the skills required to create meaningful social impact via education and accreditations . It will also be used as a conduit to drive app downloads and donations to convert potential users onto the platform.
Design Approach: Graceful Degradation (Large →Small)
Rationale: Our target users are people who use desktops and laptops for more complex tasks and sensitive tasks such as training and financial donation etc.
Also since the website is meant to be a portal for in depth research, donations and coursework it was prudent to feel out the design on a larger screen and then compressing it to a smaller size to ensure that necessary functionalities were preserved.
Wireframing: Sketches of the website layout were built for two screen sizes simultaneously using the sitemap as a guide. User inputs were taken at this stage to iron out functionalities and flow smoothness.
Final High-Fidelity Website Design:
USER INTERACTION CYCLE:
PROJECT CONCLUSION:
On this design prompt I was able to practice everything that I learnt over the 7 courses that make up the google career certificate. As I progressed along, my design process evolved and I had countless learnings. Below are my top 7.
- User Research is the cornerstone of functionally beautiful designs. Spend time diving deep.
- Quality of Research is directly proportional to quality of your final solution.
- Iteration is the name of the game. Every iteration distills out a quality product.
- Know when to stop: Often its possible to get stuck in iterative loops as we strive for perfection. Self awareness goes a long way here.
- A solution needs to be Sustainable, scalable and financially viable.
- Business objectives & User needs need to be synergized to create your north star.
- Set up processes that allow for Feedback loops and constant communication between users and collaborators.
This course has been a game changer for me and I am psyched to start my career as a professional UX designer!
