Refugee Health Alliance (RHA) is a 501(c)(3) nonprofit dedicated to providing ethical, holistic, and culturally-inclusive care and advocacy for all displaced and vulnerable populations along the US-Mexico border. RHA mobilizes a large group of volunteers, ranging from college students to licensed healthcare providers.
Role - Product Designer
Project Duration - Winter 2021 to Spring 2022
Responsibilities - User interviews, paper and digital wireframes, low and high-fidelity prototyping, usability testing, design iterations, accessibility considerations
I interviewed 6+ volunteers and gathered informal insights from management (ie. site coordinators). I asked users to walk me through their journey from discovery to registration to volunteer day. I followed up asking: How did you feel? Why did you feel that? I probed for emotions and also asked about the time spent on tasks and unexpected parts of the process.
Volunteers consisted of both medical providers and non-providers. My interviews are based off non-providers, which does have major relevance because they are the majority. I also wanted to analyze the competition but all of them were Spanish-speaking and I was limited by the language barrier. Additionally, RHA partners up with many local 'competition.'
1. High levels of trust and commitment to volunteering.
2. All users struggled with at least one part of the registration process.
3. Prefer to flock together. Community-reliant, communication valued.
Christina / 20 years old / Pre-med College Student
Ambitious / Smart / Self sufficient
Goal - Wants to be a competitive applicant when applying for medical school, wants to be doing meaningful work that gives them hands-on professional experience
Frustrations - Major busy bee; can’t volunteer during weekdays and RHA gives her the chance to do so on the weekend
Scenario - Christina is a second-year college student who needs to volunteer in clinical settings because she wants to pursue a career in medicine.
Scattered information increases time on task.
Repeated actions when checking for spots. Unnecessary steps because of an unintuitive process sends user through 5 platforms.
New users lack information and don't know what to expect, which leads to poor predictability.
How might we streamline the tasks so that users spend less time on them?
How might we help users feel informed and confident on volunteer day?
This project is a redesign of the original project. Two notable inefficiencies that are changed in the redesign include: (1) The first app was designed with a hamburger menu. This added an extra step and confused users because it made popular links less accessible. (2) The interface was text heavy and needed more visual cues.
First design - case study ↗The original app used a hamburger menu which made important pages hard to find. I considered a horizontal navigation bar, but I wanted to challenge myself to rethink the information architecture.
Our main focus is the events, so I wanted to put that upfront: (1) the events they signed up for and (2) upcoming opportunities. I designed it like like a tab/toggle switch to create the illusion that it would load quickly, as if they weren't exactly on "separate" pages. The onboarding should be a one-time access, so I decided that would be best stored with the user's account information.
The onboarding process is heavy with information. By breaking down one page of information into 5 pages of short statements, the user can read and acknowledge each statement. The top right corner shows exactly how many pages are left.
The whole process is integrated within the app: onboarding, event sign up, to group chats. There's a time and resource trade-off that comes with engineering a chat function, so I designed a functional MVP that had a button linking out to a Whatsapp group chat instead.
In order to reduce the repetitive manual checking users have to do, there's a switch that turns on alerts for open volunteer spots. This streamlines repetition and saves time. To supplement this, there is a clear way to cancel an event.
When signing up for events, the limiting factor is a person's pre-existing responsibilities. Integrating a calendar helps users quickly spot what works with their schedule. Each event also clearly states how many spot are still available.
To help the user feel more informed and secure while volunteering in a new country, I designed an offline map that pinned common locations: main clinic, popular lunch and dinner spots, border entry, etc.
While trying to figure out how to fill up the header space, I got an "aha!" moment. Volunteers are constantly outdoors, and the weather dictates what the volunteers wear. Having a weather forecast on the phone builds preparation - no surprises in rain or shine.
• Mobile app instead of web interface. Volunteers carry their phones.
• A focus on strong contrast. Volunteers will be outdoors, which can be bright and sunny.
I performed a moderated usability study and tested the prototype with 6 people. I gave the users 4 tasks to perform: completing the onboarding, signing up for an event, cancelling an event, and finding a specific location on the map. Here are the results!
• 100% task success rate, no user errors
• Reduced time on task across the board (see table below)
• Expressed delight with map and calendar
