IMPACT
Brand Design + Digital Content Impact is a volunteering job board with the goal of connecting volunteers to smaller more location-based organizations in their area in order to help those in a more transitional period of their life practice, maintain, and then speak to those skills they've learned.
Introduction
Prompt
Our task was to create a platform in order to showcase a digital stories that communicated the impact of COVID-19 personally, locally, nationlally, or, globally. The stories can be from firsthand experience, they can be collated from secondary sources, or a combination the two. The stories could be about the human condition, resilience in the face of adversity, political points, offering advice, or simple observations. Whatever the choice, our team was then told to build a digital platform (or platforms) that would serve as a means of communication.
Research
Survey Results
Our Team conducted a survey related to job loss and job security during the COVID-19 pandemic. The results consisted of 88 responses and showed that 18% of participants had been placed on furlough due to COVID. 26% of people who took the survey stated they're job shutdown or temporality closed due to COVID-19. 18% of participants stated that they are currently or have received unemployment benefits due to COVID-19. We asked participants if they had tried to find work during the COVID-19 pandemic and while 32% of the original 88 said yes, 76% of that 32% were unsuccessful in finding a job. 28% of our participants stated they feel uncomfortable with the ability to pay bills and monthly expenses due to COVID. We then asked participants if they felt as though they would have been further along in their career had the pandemic not occurred (further along meaning promotions, bonuses, pay raises, and the like) and 51% stated yes. 75% expressed that people who are working during COVID should be getting an increase in pay while another 43% stated that workload has increased for them due to COVID.
COVID & Unemployment
Following the outbreak of COVID and the lockdown in America, it was reported that around 23 million people lost their jobs and/or homes, 8 million had fallen into poverty, and the unemployment rates in most states often doubled with Hawaii being hit the worst with their rate being around 2.7% May of 2019, and hitting 22.6% by May 2020. In addition, rates of infection were found to be higher in lower income and more populated areas , increasing the contagion risk, and likelihood of financial, mental, and physical strain on a person. In general, the current crisis was a giant wake-up call for communities to bolster stability and well-being for all as a way to more effectively and equitably provide needed services in general, and then better positioned to withstand the next pandemic.
Rise in Volunteering and Organizational Work
According to a survey conducted by VolunteerMatch in March of 2020, 76% of the 730 respondents reported they were “very concerned about how the current environmental, economic, and social conditions may impact volunteering programs or volunteering activities”. However, following the official declaration of COVID-19 as a pandemic, there was a surge in volunteering and those involved in humanitarian crises. Linkedin shows that users have added “more than 110,000 volunteer activities to their profiles each month, more than twice the rate in 2017”. “This is consistent with our research (a crisis triggers a surge in volunteering),” said Nathan Dietz, a senior researcher at the Do Good Institute at the University of Maryland’s School of Public Policy. He added that ““People who are out of work right now have every incentive to advertise their skills as volunteers, because that has been shown to help them get jobs”.
Alternative Worlds
Volunteer Match
VolunteerMatch is one or the largest databases matching volunteers and organizations. The have a variety of categories, and provide remote, nearby, and country-wide opprutunities.
The negatives about VolunteerMatch is that they usually prioritize and promote larger scale organizations such as Red Cross, Salvation Army, etc. IMPACT, in contrast, would focus more on smaller and intimate organizations that have a more direct tie to their location. In addition a lot of the opportunities posted on VolunteeMmatch are often nebulous and more kin to job board postings, requiring a longer commitment and more developed skills.
Uber/Lyft/Doordash (Service Apps)
From service apps like Uber, Lyft and Doordash, I want to emulate the easy navigation from opening a menu to requesting a service. In addition, having that wide variety of options of driver and passenger, is the main selling point of using impact.
However, unlike Lyft and DoorDash, rather than having two separate applications for each user type, each user can access the same app and have an entirely different experience. I also believe this goes in the vein of volunteering since I was at work for volunteer organizations and have experience in that field, are more likely than not willing and able to volunteer for other organizations and companies.
Personas
Meet Veronica Namor
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Veronica is a student at SFSU majoring in Environmental Sustainability and minoring in Urban Studies and Planning. She’s interested in volunteering long-term, but most of her options involve doing things she really isn't interested in.
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She needs at least 100 hours of volunteer work to fulfill a requirement for one of her classes, but doesn't know where to start. She has the whole semester to get it done, but she wants to find an organization that she could continue working at in the future.
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She’d like to work for someone that supports her interest, but most postings she reads involve working at blood drives, or picking up trash. She prefers to volunteer somewhere that allows her to be outside and working with plants.
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Veronica doesn't like that there is not really any variety in the work offered. Also, she doesn't really want to work with one of the bigger organizations considering what she's learned about their practices over the years.
Meet Rachel Oates
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Rachel Oates is the founder of La Casa de las Madres, a 501(c)3 organization that “responds to calls for help from domestic violence victims, of all ages, 24 hours a day, 365 days a year. We give survivors the tools to transform their lives”.
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While they are currently doing fine with their home team, due to the impact of COVID on struggling families, Rachel wants to get a few new volunteers to help out over the next coming weeks.
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Rachel would like to add to their number of volunteers and potentially recruit some long-term volunteers.
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Most volunteers they’ve gotten, either don't say long-term, or come in not expecting the amount of work they’ll have to do, since most traditional volunteer sites don't allow them to do in-depth with the requirements (both physical and emotional) needed.
HMW Statement
"How might we make volunteering more worthwhile for both parties?"
Process
Sketches
What’s the Vibe?
Clean
This app is meant to streamline the volunteering process so making sure signing-up to and adding a volunteer opportunity process go smoothly come down to a clean and clear design.
Obvious
Information would have to be straight to the point in order to decrease the amount of confusion on both ends. Volunteers want to know the who, what, and where while organizations want a clear indication of how many volunteers they have, and a direct line of communication for any last minute changes.
Style Guide
Refinement of Volunteer Feed
conclusion
What is IMPACT?
Impact is a volunteering job board with the goal of connecting volunteers to smaller more location-based organizations in their area in order to help those in a more transitional period of their life practice, maintain, and then speak to those skills they've learned.
Live Prototype
This prototype was made through Adobe XD using the template of an iPhone 11.
Final Remarks
Here’s What Happened
The project ended up expanding half-way through adding to the work, but also allowing me to experiment more. What was essentially an attempt at buffing up a project that felt a little lack-luster, became something that allowed me to combine interest (Design and Volunteer Work), utilize different user types, and deviate from my usual to-do methods of design.
Here’s What Really Happened
This project ended up taking more time than expected, but also allowed me to work on a few skills I really haven’t had time to delve into. Those skills include dealing with accessibility issues, non-traditional menus, and accommodating multiple user types.
Takeaways
Moving forward, I'd like to experiment more with different types of users and what their particular dashboard would look like. A lot of my projects tend to focus on individual user groups, and tend to default to a vertical scrolling home page with infinite content, that is usually user generated. Working with differing types of content in addition to different types of scrolling would expand out my catalogue of skills.