Improving the volunteer experience for Benevity app users
Benevity App / 2022
About
The Benevity app allows employees to make charitable donations and sign up for volunteer opportunities through work. Our users found it difficult to find upcoming volunteer commitments and track their volunteer time. This project aimed to create a seamless volunteering experience from sign up to volunteer time approval.
My Role
UX/UI Design
Research
The Team
I collaborated with my Product Manager, Software Developer Manager and 4 Mobile developers.
Users Can't Find Upcoming Volunteering
Problem #1: The path to finding upcoming volunteer commitments is long and unclear.
Ever since the launch of the Spark app, the Mobile team had received feedback from our users and clients about how long and confusing the path was for finding and signing up for volunteering.
To dive deeper into this issue, I completing a task analysis that helped show just how long this path was. When a user had to check their volunteer shift details or track their volunteer time it would take 6-9 steps!
Problem #2: The ‘Track Volunteer Time” button is for external volunteer shifts (volunteering completed outside of the workplace) but users are tracking time for internal shifts (volunteering completed through work).
The Benevity app does allow users to track volunteer time for commitments outside of the platform, however, many of them were using the CTA to track time for shifts they signed up for in the platform.
I knew that this button was not understandable and had to make sure there was a clear difference between tracking time for an external opportunity vs. a work opportunity.
Journey Mapping: What does the entire volunteer journey look like?
To better understand the volunteering experience for an employee using Spark, I created an in-depth journey map based on previous feedback I had collected through Aha. Benevity Spark is offered in both mobile and desktop platforms so this helped me outline “Bouncing” points - where the user would become frustrated with the mobile app and bounce to the web platform.
It was clear that pain points were most prevalent when a user is searching for opportunities, checking their shifts details and tracking volunteer time.
Usability Testing the Current Experience
To ensure I tested any assumptions, I completed 8 usability tests with internal Benevity users who had not used the mobile app before. Although using internal users can introduce bias, I knew it was a quick way to validate this feedback. Using the current version of the app, I had them sign up for a volunteer opportunity of their choice, check their shift details and track their volunteer time. After synthesizing the data, it was clear that our “assumptions” were correct and their largest pain points were:
Finding an opportunity
“Wow, this is a LOT to read on a phone, and I'm definitely not going to do that.”
- Participant 2
Checking shift details
“I was expecting something [volunteering] to show up on the homepage.”
- Participant 8
Tracking time
"Tracking External Volunteering is kind of throwing me off, because I'm wondering if I should be doing that to log internal.”
- Participant 3
Using the “What do the users say/do/feel/think” framework to understand major pain points
Volunteer Activity: Highlighting Upcoming Shifts and Track Time
With all of my in-depth discovery work completed, it was time for wireframing. One of the main pieces we pulled from the usability testing is that after signing up, users would go back to the Homepage to see if they had any updates. To match the user’s mental models, I started designing a “Volunteer activity” section that would show on the Homepage where users could more easily check shift details and get reminders to track their volunteer time. The user no longer had to search for this information; the most relevant and timely information they needed was given to them.
Consideration: Donation-Only Users
After rounds of feedback sessions, design reviews and technical meetings, I uncovered some use cases that hadn’t been previously considered. Both the Upcoming and Track Time sections were very large and took up a lot of the Home screen. As well, for users that donate more than they volunteer - did it make sense to leave the volunteer section on the Home screen even if there was no activity?
With these pieces of feedback in mind, I decided to make a combined Volunteer Activity section highlighting the most upcoming opportunity and trackable shift. If the user is a volunteering champion and has several shifts, they can view it within the “View All” tab that is organized by date or ongoing. As well, for our users who are more focused on donating, this section won’t be persistent - helping them avoid feelings of FUD (Fear, uncertainty, doubt).
With this work, I was also able to add a new text button styling to accommodate the “View All” button in the header. I also reworked the button for tracking volunteering outside of work to say “Track External Volunteering” to make this more clear to the user.
Reflection: Understand Your User Groups
This project taught me that even when you are focused on a specific user action (such as volunteering) it’s important to consider the users who have other preferences and may not partake in such actions. If we have a user who is a busy parent, working full time perhaps volunteering does not suit their needs. Or if a user is paying down debt and can not afford to donate, consider presenting other options of giving - like volunteering their time.
In a future state, I would love to tackle the issue of easily finding volunteer opportunities (which was not in scope of this project). Not every user already has a list of their favourite causes - volunteering would be more accessible if the platform could provide them with smart suggestions based on interests or what is popular amongst coworkers.