Let's Save the Oceans
LSO has a mission: call on people to help save the oceans. For this, LSO needed an App, enhancing the sense of community, so that people can donate whenever and wherever they were. The donating process needs to be easy and quick for the user, friendly and understandable.
Challenges:
1. Design an easy-to-understand and intuitive user flow for the donating process.
2. Give the user well organized and easy-to-find articles, news and additional information.
3. Choose a strategic use of words to create a sense of urgency in the community to help the planet through LSO.
Role: UX/UI designer, UX Writer
Location Company: USA
01
Kick Off
I started by asking myself a few initial questions: Who is your primary user? What will their goal be? Why would the user want to use this App? What information would the user need to complete their task? After interviewing five participants who wanted to support an environmental cause, it was clear the user needed an easy and fast way to donate, alternative options to help, and to have information at hand about the cause to help them (or persuade them) to make the decision.
02
Creating Personas
To further understand my user needs, I created two main types of archetypes through the Empathy Maps I drew from the interviews and the secondary research I conducted about the matter.
Meet Carlos
Age: 39
Occupation: Company Owner
Carlos is owner of a manufacturing company, and even though the business world can be ruthless with the environment, he believes in balance through supporting an NGO. Yet, he's in constant hustle, moving from meeting to meeting, and the only spare time he has to browse or donate is when he's in the taxi.
"Even though most people think my company only takes, I believe I can give back too"
Meet Alana
Age: 23
Occupation: Student
Alana is a university student who is passionate about the environment. Even though she doesn't have a massive income at the moment, she wants to help with whatever she can, and if there's a way for her to volunteer, she'll definitely do so. Not only would she be helping the planet, but also strengthening her resume.
"I want to be as involved as possible in helping save our planet, even though I still don't have millions to give"
03
Competitive Audit
To understand more about the existing market and competition, I researched and compared direct and indirect competitors such as Save Our Seas Foundation, Oceana and WWF. I needed to understand what my competition offered and what they were lacking to find the value proposition of my product.
04
Architecture Information
05
Wireframes
Ideation process. Method used: Crazy 8 exercise to come up with the best design for my type of user
06
Usability Study
Through conducting an unmoderated usability study with the Low Fidelity Prototype of the main user flow (Donate), I pin pointed some pain points the users where experiencing in the process.
The insights were used to adapt the wireframes, thus, including the step by step of the process at the top of the screen, labeling the "community button" as "volunteer", accentuating the buttons and call to actions as well, adding the option for people to create an account and save their payment info if they feel like donating more than once, and adding a short message at the end of the process to reassure the user with the knowledge of how their money will be used - how exactly they are helping the oceans. Wouldn't you want to know?
07
Mockups
Following the clear path I had marked out with my research and the ideate process, and the wireframes and low fidelity prototype, I created the mockups based on the brand's color palette and following strict accessibility rules with them. All colors were tested with the WebAIM to make sure it was all legible.
Logo
Main Color Palette
Gray Palette
Typographgy
Dosis
Secundary Palette
08
High Fidelity Prototype
09
Responsive Website
10
Takeways
As an enthusiast myself, working on an app to help save the oceans was truly rewarding. I had never gotten the chance to put myself in the shoes of a user who's eager to learn about our environment and donate to help such an extraordinary cause. As a designer, I learned the importance of clear and easily accesible information, through an intuitive user flow. On the other hand, I felt a true challenge as a UX Writer striving to evoke a subtle sense of urgency through the use of words. I would have loved to incorporate additional features to create a truly active community, to give people an outlet to share their passion for oceans. It's a good takeaway to pitch for future projects.