Collaborating with UX Designers to produce an app facilitating classroom donations.

All these toys and no way to donate...

Working with a team of UX Designers, I worked to find innovative and efficient ways to help teachers and parents communicate with each other while donating necessary items. 

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Pinpointing the Problem

We interviewed both parents and teachers to find out what their pain points are in the donation process. I interviewed a parent of two children (ages 15 and 5) and a high school teacher.

“It’s hard to know if items are useful to others; it’s hard to part with items and to get motivated to clean.” - Parent

“I have bought supplies with my own money since there  wasn’t any PTA funding, district funding, or alumni donations. I can get my money reimbursed but it’s a difficult process and complicated process.” - Teacher

From our interview findings, we were able to create two personas. 

Finding inspiration...

For inspiration, we did some research on current companies who are offering similar services. 

- Toycycle's concept was interesting because they act like an intermediate between both parties.

- Gone for Good is an app that allows the user the option to donate to selected charities and picks up the donation for them. We like the ease of process.

Putting everything on an affinity map!

Using information from the interviews, our research findings and the current demand - as a team, we brainstormed using an affinity map. We put down any user insights, opinions and possible features. Then we categorized the sections to make major insights, user needs and pain points clear.

We found that parents wanted another way to coordinate the donation of their child’s items and having “a better, organized way to connect those in need to those who are able to give.”

We found that teachers want an easier way to access the supplies and toys they need without the school administration. 

What is this app going to look like?

We then arranged what features were needed and created a site map that first focused on the parent flow - what they would see when they log in and go through the application. 

Splitting up the Wireframes

While the site map was completed collaboratively, for the wireframes, we were assigned different screens to own.

I worked on the Guide to Donating and Settings pages:

I wanted to show a quick step by step guide through a horizontal picture scroll. For settings, I wanted to show what steps a user can take to edit their profile and adjust their notifications. There is a log out button they can access to leave the app. 

We then completed a click-through version for usability testing:

Usability Tests

Before moving on to the mid-high fidelity prototype, we did some usability tests with what we had completed. Below are findings from a usability test I conducted with a parent who is going through our app for the first time. 

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Task time  

1. Register for the app - around 30 seconds (pauses for questions) 

2. You have a disco Barbie you want to get rid of. Post a donation. - 1 minute (didn’t know to scroll down) 

3. Your son is very excited about coloring these days. Post a request for color markers (note: you do not have a photo to upload) - 31 seconds 

4. Search for a hulk toy and claim it - 30 seconds (hit the magnifying glass instead of “Go”) 

5. You remembered the Disco Barbie you posted actually has brown hair. Update the description in the post.  - 24 seconds 

6. A couple of days have passed. You’re curious if the Hulk toy you claimed has made it to school yet. Find out - 8 seconds 

Task rate  

• 6 out of 6 tasks  

Usability Testing Summary  

The parent thought the app had a clean layout - fairly easy to use. However, she wasn’t exactly sure about the concept - wasn’t sure how the parent to teacher exchange worked. If it was a parent-to-parent exchange - does the teacher still have to be involved? 

“I don’t want to put one more thing on the school or the teacher to do.” 

“I think it’s a really good idea but not sure how it would work.” 

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What do we need to improve?

After gathering all of our results, we compiled what needed to be improved:

• Make a clear distinction between parent to parent exchange and parent to teacher exchange.  
• Clarify Recommendations or remove it and replace the section to Categories.
• Clear up any confusing aspects of the user interface. 
  

To simplify the process, we decided to focus on just the parent to parent interaction and donation process. 

Working on the Mid-High Fidelity Prototype

We did some brainstorming on the various colors and styles that were inspired from apps we found during our research.

Playing with different color palettes and seeing what it looked like against our prototype: 

Maintaining consistency in our designs...

Within the Figma, we created a design system based on what we have already worked on with our wireframes. Because there were many designers on this project, we wanted to create a design system that will maintain consistency and improve efficiency during the creation of our prototype.

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Final Prototype:

Conclusion and lessons learned:

Due to time constraints and external conflicts, we decided to end with this final prototype.

This was the first time I worked on a project with UX designers from different backgrounds and skill sets. It was so much fun and very insightful to collaborate and share ideas from research strategies to what looks good on the page!