HumanKind
A mobile platform that facilitates voucher-based donations between community members without the need for cash or a bank account!
Project Duration: 4 months
Team: 5 UX Designers/Researchers
My Role: UX Designer & Researcher
P R O J E C T C O N T E X T
Problem Context
Motivation behind this project
We noticed that a lot of individuals ask for money or food on the streets, but hardly anyone stops to help or give. We’re sure people are sympathetic, so there must be some other reasons that people don’t stop and give even if they want to.
For example:
“I just don’t carry cash anymore.”
This was a common reason cited by our peers, and it made us curious about any other barriers that might be stifling generosity. If we could identify these barriers and design a solution that eliminated them, we would be able to help more people in need.
P R O J E C T O V E R V I E W
Problem
How can we encourage donations from people who are sympathetic towards others in need?
Outcome
We designed an app where people can post wishlists for grocery, clothing, or hygiene items. Donors can make voucher-based donations to fulfill those wishlists.
O U T C O M E
Solution Preview
A Wishlist based Donation App
Donor Experience
Donors can make voucher-based donations to fulfill wishlists posted by people in their area.
Requestor Experience
Requestors can post public wishlists up to $200/month for grocery, clothing, or hygiene items.
Design Process
Define
Target Users
Beneficiaries
Ideation
Sketches
Brainstorming
Product Requirements
User Flow
Prototyping
Paper Prototype
Wireframes
High-fidelity Prototype
Testing
Usability tests
Discovery
User Interviews
Competitive Analysis
0 1 | D I S C O V E R Y
User Research
1. Understanding Donors
Research Questions
1. Why don’t people donate?
2. What do donors prioritize in the donation process?
Donor Interviews
To answer these questions, we conducted 12 in-depth interviews with experienced donors between the ages of 22-55.
Sample Interview Questions
“Can you walk me through the last time you made a donation?”
“What is your reaction when someone on the street asks you for money?”
Key Findings for Donors
Through our interviews, we found donors value:
Comfort
Willing to assist people who ask for help, but many prefer not to interact with strangers in person due to fears around unpredictability, hygiene, and personal safety.
Convenience
Willing to make quick donations to people they meet but they often don’t carry cash and aren’t willing to go out of their way into a store to buy stuff for others.
Transparency
Wanted to know how the money they donated would be spent. Specifically, they wanted reassurance that their donations would go towards something necessary and impactful.
Simplicity
Researching different charitable organizations, cross comparing causes and then manually inputting repetitive information across donation sites takes too much effort.
2. Understanding Recipients
Research Questions
1. What is the best way to assist people who are not being helped by existing donation methods?
2. What factors determine where and how people get access to resources?
Recipient Interviews
We conducted 3 interviews with individuals struggling with homelessness.
Sample Interview Questions
“What items are most helpful to you”
“How do you decide where you get your resources?”
Key Findings for Recipients
Through our interviews we found recipients wanted:
Desire for more Communication
People get help from shelters, pantries, and churches but rarely get to request their specific needs to donors
Location Matters
People want to be able to safely access their aid without having to go to a faraway location
Access to Technology
People could access computers or phones through libraries or the government but did not really see the need to do so
No bank accounts
People did not have access to bank accounts
3. Competitive Analysis
I analyzed competitors that facilitate donations to vulnerable populations in order to identify the unmet needs of both donors and recipients.
Sample of Competitors
Not sure who ends up with your donation
Information Overload
People don’t even think about it unless they see a collection box
Requires going to donate in person
Key Findings for Competitors
Through our interviews we found:
Lack of Personalization
Donors were rarely able to trace their donations to specific recipients.
Dependent on Overhead
Most competitors required a large amount of organization, marketing, distribution, or inventory management to function
Acting as Middlemen
Most competitors were middlemen between donors and recipients, involving layers of bureaucracy, wait, or opacity.
People are left behind
Recipients with poor mobility, time-sensitive needs, or poor tech skills were left behind.
Opportunity Space
There is opportunity to design a contact-less solution that gives donors a quick and easy way to help individuals who have fluctuating needs.
Our solution should directly connect donors with recipients without the need for a middleman.
0 2 | D E F I N E
Target Users
We believe the following users are systematically neglected in the mainstream donation ecosystem and would benefit from the type of intervention we’re designing.
Personas
Primary Donor
Goals: Wants to offer quick solutions from her comfort zone
Pain points: Feels uncomfortable helping strangers face-to-face because it feels unpredictable.
Secondary Donor
Goals: Wants a sustainable donation method she can do frequently
Pain points: Wants to know the people she donates to but doesn’t have time to volunteer in person.
Primary Beneficiary
Goals: Need aid that is reliable and flexible and that isn’t affected by their previous year’s income
Pain Points: Makes too much to qualify for food stamps but still need assistance in affording household staples
Donors
People who have the willingness and financial means to donate to people in need.
They may be seeking a more efficient and convenient way of donating.
They want to know more details about the people they donate to but don’t prefer to interact face-to-face with others.
They may prefer to donate with greater frequency in smaller amounts.
Recipients / Requestors
People who need extra assistance in affording livelihood necessities such as groceries, clothing, and personal care items.
They have a reported income that is less than the livable income in their geographic area.
Their needs are less predictable, more time sensitive, and of a smaller scale.
They have access to technology but don’t necessarily have bank accounts.
0 3 | I D E A T E
Diverging before Converging
1. Sketches
We did brainstorming and sketching sprints to ideate contact-less ways donors could connect with recipients.
…before converging.
Many of our ideas enabled people to make spontaneous and frictionless donations to people who would be able to physically access non-monetary aid.
We scrapped donation ideas that relied on third-party labor such as:
“Amazon locker” system
Drop off coolers outside stores
We also scrapped ideas with restrictive or non-urgent forms of aid such as:
“Pay-it-forward” system at cafes
Donation vending machines
3. Interaction flow
2. Our vision for how it would work
Diverging …
Our team drew out 50+ ideas that met the requirements of our target donors.
1. HumanKind will start as a mobile app.
We decided that this would be the most suitable platform to support the quick, frequent donations we wanted to facilitate. Not everything would be housed in the app though. Recipients would receive their aid through a working email address that they could access on any device, such as a computer at the public library.
2. The form of aid will be store-vouchers.
Requesters can create and post wish lists tied to a local participating store with items that fall into grocery, clothing, or hygiene product categories. When a donor fulfills their wishlist, the recipient gets the equivalent dollar amount in a voucher that only works at the store for items that fall into the requested category.
3. Recipients do not actually have to use their vouchers to buy the exact items they listed.
To protect user privacy and allow for flexibility, so long as the store and product category remained the same, recipients could redeem any items with their voucher. The point of an itemized list was just to give donors a general idea of the recipient’s needs, which may factor into their decision of whether or not to donate. Donors will not receive any information about what recipients ended up buying.
4. To promote trust and transparency, some information will be required and some will be optional.
Requestors need to specify their first name and a wishlist that contains the store name, product category, and approximate list of items they need so that donors will have enough information about where their money would go. Everyone’s previous wishlist history will be public but it’s optional to include any other personal information.
5. Users will be soft-verified in order to join the app as a requestor.
Users would just need to input their annual income during the onboarding process, and the submitted income will be compared to the livable income for their geographic area as researched and recommended by the MIT Living Wage Calculator. If the reported income is less than the livable income in their area, the user qualifies for need-based donations through Humankind.
6. There is a $200/month request limit for each user.
Ideally this cap can prevent the potential for abuse of the system. While this may seem like a low limit, our app is just designed to give extra assistance in affording livelihood necessities. Ideally users would also be accessing other supplementary forms of aid.
User Tasks
1. The user first creates an account to browse donation requests.
2. When they find an individual they want to help, they make a donation and then receive a donation confirmation.
0 4 | P R O T O T Y P E
Prototyping
We created paper, mid-fidelity, and high-fidelity prototypes that we refined through 3 rounds of usability testing.
1. Paper Prototype
We created a paper prototype so that we could do quick usability testing.
2. Wireframes
After incorporating feedback from usability testing on the paper prototype, we created some mid-fidelity wireframes to drill down on specific features of the app’s interface, map out key panels, and kick the visual design process into high gear.
3. High Fidelity Prototype
Our team converted our wireframes into a hi-fidelity prototype to begin another round of usability testing. At this point we began to experiment with interactions, and refine the look and feel of the app to cater to our target audiences.
0 5 | T E S T I N G
Usability Testing
15 Usability Tests
We conducted fifteen usability tests over the three rounds of prototyping.
All feedback was recorded onto usability tests logs, which we then consolidated into a Miro board to discuss final refinements for our app.
Key Changes
Here are four major design changes we made based on feedback from our tests.
Key Change #1
Changed the home screen to emphasize requests, instead of requestors.
When people’s photos were too big, the interface looked like a dating app.
Original
Final
Key Change #2
Removed ability to filter requestors by identity tags.
Request category was the people’s first filter of choice. Identity tags might introduce unnecessary bias too early.
Original
Final
Key Change #3
Removed messaging but added a favorites feature.
We wanted to facilitate an interpersonal aspect across time but wanted to limit risk of harassment.
Original
Final
Key Change #4
Changed donation history to emphasize people they helped instead of spending.
People cared less about how much money they spent and more about what impact they had.
Original
Final
F I N A L S O L U T I O N
HumanKind
A donation platform that facilitates quick voucher-based donations between community members.
Main Features
1. Find Wishlists
On their homescreen, donors can find wishlists from requestors in their area using filters.
2. Browse & Donate
Before they donate, donors can view requestor wishlists, as well as a requestor’s history and bio. They can then donate by fulfilling a wishlist.
3. View your Impact
Donors can see itemized donations and your impact summary by year in the Donation History page.
4. Requestors can create Wishlists
Despite less user research, we still prototyped the requestor side to envision the entire solution flow.
Final Presentation Poster
Click here to see in HD
Reflection
If I had more time
Recipient side research & testing. Conduct more needs assessment for requestors. It was difficult to get access to these users due to privacy and ethical issues.
Refine In-app language. Since finances are a sensitive topic, do more research to make sure that our in-app language is sensitive, appropriate, and empathetic.
Ensure UI Accessibility. Conduct an accessibility audit and take into account common disabilities such as mobility and visual impairments.
Lessons to carry forward
Get prototypes in front of users sooner rather than later. We learned just as much from our paper prototype testing as we did from our hi-fidelity testing. It’s important to validate or eliminate assumptions as soon as possible.
Add value wherever you can even if you can’t serve everyone. We were stuck for a very long time trying to design a solution that would help every single vulnerable population. However, we realized that if we do so, we wouldn’t be able to adequately meet all of their nuanced needs. So even though our solution can’t help with those who have greater financial needs or who are housing-insecure, we still believe adding incremental value is important.
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