Helpout
A volunteering app created to make it easier to find volunteering opportunities that fits with the users interests and schedule.
2025
The project
Goal: To create a user-friendly digital platform that makes it easier for people to volunteer and for the users to find volunteer opportunities that fits with their interests and schedule.
Target users: Those who do volunteer and those who has not volunteered much or not at all, but they would like to.
My role: I did this project alone, and therefore responsible for the full design process from research and ideation to scenario development, usability testing, prototyping, and translating findings into meaningful design improvements.
Timeframe: 5 weeks (Project exam)
I used the design thinking model: Empathize, Define, Ideate, Prototype, Test. This process is based on the idea that you can move back and forth between the steps until you found a solution that solves your problem.
Empathize: In order to design this app we need to have a better understanding of our potential users. We need to understand what would motivate them and what could prevent them from using this app. This stage helps us gather insight to understand the user.
Define: During this stage I will use my research to bring clarity to the problem we are trying to solve. This will help to define the problem we are trying to solve, and who we are solving it for.
Ideate: This stage focuses on creativity and brainstorming to come up with possible solutions. This stage helps to come up with ideas on how I can solve the problem.
Prototype: This stage will help bring the ideas into life. Prototypes will make it possible to explore how the solution might work.
Test: This stage is for testing the idea. It allows for feedback from users, where I can learn what works and what does not. It gives insight into what areas that needs improvements before I can go ahead with the solution.
How can we make it easier for people to volunteer?
It seems that many are interested in volunteering, they just don´t know where to start. It can be difficult to find something that fits your interests and schedule - and maybe its a little scary to show up alone? It can quickly become overwhelming.
To solve this problem, this app focuses on making it easier to find volunteering opportunities that fits the user.
To explore this, I set up a research plan based on the Design Thinking Process. The research plan is based on the given timeline of five weeks. This process will help me find solutions that will be in the best interest of the users and business.
Empathize
Research goals
Who will this app be for and what are they like?
What would motivate people to use this app to find volunteer opportunities?
How would the app work and help users find volunteer opportunities that fits with their interests and schedule?
Research
In order to get more in-depth-understanding of the target audience I used primary and secondary research methods to gather both quantitative and qualitative research. I chose to combine literature review, survey, and user interview.
A literature review is time efficient and gave me qualitative and quantitative insight that contributed to finding any relevant themes and patterns.
The survey allowed for data collection from a bigger group of people, and gave me an understanding of their interests in volunteering and what type of volunteering they would look for.
I conducted user interviews for primary research. This gave me qualitative insight into the needs of the target users and what factors are important to them regarding volunteering. I set up a semi-structured interview that allowed for additional questions where fitted.
I used a data collection spreadsheet and affinity mapping to make sense of the findings from the research interview and literature review.
Insight
Some of the insights that has high priority:
This app would be for everyone that volunteers or would like to volunteer. Many are struggling to find volunteer opportunities even though they would like to contribute - as they do not know where to start. This app aims to make it more accessible.
People would be motivated to use this app as it will solve some of the hinders they have to volunteer. Some of these hinders are: cant find any volunteering opportunities, sosial hesitation, cant find anything that matches their interest, and cant find anything that fits with their schedule.
The app will gather everything needed in one place. You can search for opportunities, read about opportunities or organizations, apply or sign up for opportunities, save your favorites and even sign up with a friend. You will also be able to make a profile that can help you match with potential opportunities.
It will have a search field making it easy to find if you are looking for something specific. There will be a filter to make it quick to find something that suits you in regards to interest, type of work, time, and location. Every volunteer organization will have a page on the app with updated info, then the user will be able to check if they need volunteers right now, or maybe for a specific time in the future, or if they are good for right now. Some volunteering opportunities might recuire more security and the user will be able to complete their profile to apply for those.
There are lots of people that want to volunteer, there are lots of organizations that needs volunteers - but right now they are not finding each other
Define
Problem statement
People (who) struggle to find volunteer opportunities (what) that fits with their schedule, match their interests and makes them comfortable to join due to social hesitation (why).
If we can solve this problem, it would make volunteering more accessible for everyone, and they will be able to find volunteering opportunities without the stress it currently causes.
It would also benefit volunteering organizations as the app would be a trusted platform that gatheres everything in one place and can increase the amount of volunteers.
Personas
I created two personas, one primary and one secondary.
Lacking Linda is the primary persona
Lacking Linda has not volunteered before, but she would like to start volunteering. She has had problems finding opportunities that fits her schedule and interests. If it takes too long to find something or theres no proper overview she quickly gets overwhelmed and tells herself she will look at it another day.
Volunteering Jon is the secondary persona
Volunteering Jon is a retired teacher that has volunteered on and off his entire life. Now that he is retired he has a lot more free time and enjoys spending his days helping out others. It makes him feel good when he is contributing to something bigger, and volunteering makes him feel like he is contributing to making a difference in the world.
Ideate
How might we…
Make it easier to to find volunteer opportunities?
Make a solution that will benefit both the user and organization?
Make information about volunteering more available?
Make it easy to find volunteering options that fits with the users schedule and interests?
Offer a solution that is safe to use for everyone involved?
Mind mapping
Brainstorming: I used brainstorming to start generating ideas. In this stage there are no “bad” ideas and I just started to write down everything I could think of. This takes the pressure off and one idea often lead to another, and this can lead to great ideas you wouldn´t have thought of otherwise.
Mind Mapping: After writing down several ideas while brainstorming, I started to connect my ideas through mind mapping. This lead me to come up with more ideas that were building on each other as well. As mind mapping is a visual technique it creates an organized overview of all the ideas that gives a different perspective.
Protoyping
User flow
This user flow is for accessing the app through login or create an account.
Wireframes
Test
Usability testing
The goal of the usability test is :
To test the app and specific flows with the target audience
To learn how a potential user will interact with the app
To identify potential pain points
To test whether the flows makes sense to a potential user.
Methods:
Modereated remote testing
Participants were instructed to think out loud to explain their thought process (CTA)
Participants shared screen and voice were recorded during the test
I made observations during the tests and through the recordings to understand how the participants navigate and complete the tasks.
Metrics to be tracked:
Task completion rate: This will tell me how usable or easy the search and filter functions are to understand for the users.
Time on task: This will give an indication of how efficient the search and filter functions are.
Error rate: This will show whether there are any elements that cause confusion or are difficult to understand/find.
Next steps
The suggested improvements that has high priority:
The organizations pages should be clearly linked on the job listings they have posted. Now, the job listings have their logo and information about the organization, but it should link to their page on the app as well for easy access and further information.
The focus for this assignment is the end user, however, there should be some information towards organizations as a user as well. There needs to be added an option to log in as an organization and some information about how organizations can add their volunteer jobs. An end user can also be someone that works for an organization, and therefore it could be beneficial to add something, without making too much noise.
Consider making it more visible that you can add friends in the app on the home page. In the job listing it should also mention something about inviting their friends with them.
For the job listings, there should be added information about the time of the day that is needed. This should be added on the listing-card on the home page and when you click the listing.
Add a sentence about what kind of information the organization might want to receive in the comment section of the job application
Could be an option to save a search the user have made. If they often look for similar opportunities, this will make it easier for them to stay updated. This will also add to the personalization of having their own profile and account.
As users seemed to like the favorite feature a lot, it could be an option to improve it further and allow for favorite lists on the favorite section. This way the user can create lists for certain topics or type of jobs.
For further testing I recommend to try testing in person with the prototype on a phone to simulate the most realistic experience.
I recommend to conduct user testing with a wider group of people, as well as users above the age of 65, as many who volunteer are retired.
Research shows that those retired are a large group of those who volunteer and that there are fewer volunteers among the age group 25-34. It should be considered weather the app should cater to both personas or focus on the younger group to encourage more volunteering in that age group. The testing has shown that the app design works well towards this age group.