this is a dashboard created inspired and based on the existing nonprofit organization, austin pets alive!, a major animal shelter located in austin, tx.
role
- ux researcher
- ui designer
- ux designer
scope
- deliver a web responsive dashboard for a nonprofit
- minimum viable product (mvp) in 80 hours
austin pets alive! or apa!, is a nonprofit, no kill animal shelter that helps pets around the austin, tx area.
they are dedicated to promoting and providing comprehensive, innovative programs to save and improve the lives of companion animals with a focus on those at risk of euthanasia. they actively work towards creating a no-kill community by offering adoption, education, and medical intervention programs.
austin pets alive! has faced issues in terms of organizing their content effectively and have struggled to keep track of their volunteers, events and donations in a clear manner.
apa! needs an easy and effective way to manage all their resources in one place.
what resources and tools can help improve a nonprofit organization's management?
my main goals for conducting research are to find important data and tips for how a dashboard should be structured, as well as understand the needs of users who will be utilizing the dashboard.
- interviewed 5 participants ranging from ages 25-29
- 3 women, 1 man
- all texas residents
- 1 in person interview, and 3 video call interviews
through the interviews i found that many people had pain points surrounding a lack of a single place to manage organization resources. there was a lot of stress around affordability since many nonprofits do not have many sources of income. overall, all users wanted to see a dashboard for managing data.
all users collectively wanted to see a well organized dashboard that could manage data for all events, volunteers and donations.
- almost all users at their nonprofits did not have enough funding to even have a dashboard so most of them would only be able to communicate via email or phone
- funding was a big stressor since them having no money affected their comms
- miscommunication was common since the nonprofits did not have effective ways to relay information
- almost all users at their nonprofits did not have enough funding to even have a dashboard so most of them would only be able to communicate via email or phone
- funding was a big stressor since them having no money affected their comms
- miscommunication was common since the nonprofits did not have effective ways to relay information
i chose 4 popular dashboard analytic services that have a component that revolves around nonprofits.
- neon one has a great user friendly interface and is made for nonprofits, however, some users have reported challenges with scalability as their organizations grow.
- google analytics has a great variety of tools to use on the dashboard and can be integrated with other google products. on the downside, it may have limitations in analyzing data related to in-person events, campaigns, or other offline interactions.
- tableau has a great user interface and data can be connected via spreadsheets, databases, etc. but it can be expensive and there are performance issues for large data sets.
- sisense also has a user friendly interface and is scalable, accommodating the growth of data and users within an organization. as a downside, it's also expensive and native visualization options may be considered somewhat limited.
after interviewing users, i gathered that most pain points surrounded lack of a single space to view all information. they all wished to have a dashboard of some sort to manage volunteers, track donations and manage events.
the user personas here created are based on the information gathered during affinity mapping. my first persona, sarah rodriguez has an emphasis on being an event coordinator and focuses on volunteer management. she helps create events and guides volunteers to sign up. her main needs are a user friendly dashboard with a tool to manage volunteers and their attendance.
my second user persona, michael thompson, is more focused on donation and fundraising efforts. like sarah, his needs also revolve around a dashboard to display data metrics and track donation trends.
this flow is based on the volunteer flow that starts at the overview page and goes through creating a volunteer and selecting a volunteer profile.
due to time constraints, i wanted to zone in on the volunteering aspect the most, while also adding an overview screen to see all holistic data across the board.
i produced a sitemap and kept it simple since it is a dashboard, it wasn't necessary in my eyes to make it complex. each tab has its own functionality and is separate from one another. the secondary pages, the blue ones, are pages that exist within each tab.
i started my sketches with the overview. i knew i wanted to incorporate elements of volunteering, donations and events on this page since an overview should include data for each of these things, while each page would showcase more detailed data metrics. since i focused on the volunteer flow, i created the key screens for creating a volunteer and the volunteer profile page.
now for the fun part, using figma for wireframes! i brought my sketches to life and chose these 4 key frames to display for mid fidelity. i focused on adding keeping the structure of the frames similar to my sketches and modified anything i felt was out of place.
i followed the pre-existing theme that apa! already had based on their brand guidelines and made some tweaks. i felt it was important to maintain the same branding with the dashboard so i incorporated the same logo, font, and colors. i modified their buttons, cards and icons and overall felt satisfied with the style tile.
for this iteration, i made sure to incorporate the colors of the theme and font in the flows. i did feel like it was a struggle to get the correct colors to make sure they all didn't clash too much with each other. i wanted to keep the theme simple yet matching the current apa! website theme as well, since it is more playful.
the goal of this usability test is to make sure the prototype makes sense, i wanted to see users navigate the dashboard, focusing on the volunteer portion. this will be helpful for my future iterations to see what user pain points and suggestions come out of the test.
1) creating a new volunteer
the user starts at the overview page. they need to add a new volunteer named jonathan fraizer.
2) navigate to a volunteer’s profile
after adding the new volunteer, we need to check a certain volunteer's profile, named amelia gonzalez.
- interviewed 4 participants ranging from ages 23-39
- 2 women, 2 men
- all texas residents
- 2 in person interviews, 2 on a video call
- 100% of users were able to create a new volunteer
- 100% of users were able to find a specific volunteer’s profile
- 0 critical errors
- 75% of users commented on the ui and ease of use
overall, everyone who used the prototype had minimal issues with accessing each page. the most positive feedback heard was the visual and ui design. users said it was easy on the eyes and made it easier to navigate.
the negative feedback was mostly around the content of the overview page. they suggested moving the calendar to its own page, and adding more data metrics.
someone also tried to search for the specific volunteer instead of clicking on one from the list, which i understood completely especially if the said volunteer was not mentioned. it also makes it easier to search. another user suggested the ui may be too “consumer facing” since it does not look as professional.
for this iteration, i took into account the main things i wanted to change.
on the overview page, i moved the calendar out and created its own tab. i replaced the calendar with more data metrics across the board that covers volunteers, events and donations. i then moved the upcoming events down to give it more space. i was satisfied with how the overview turned out because it does allow the overview to show more detailed data visually.
the second thing i changed was adding a search flow. i realized it didn't make sense not having a search option since that is usually how people find things initially. the search will have an automatic suggestions popup while they type to make things easier and go directly to the user's profile.
overall, this project was very enjoyable to work on. since i used to work at apa! as a volunteer, being able to create a user experience for them helped me have fun! i was able to gather insight on people's pain points within their own organizations and learned how much of a struggle it is to not have any funding, and just an overall manageable tool. it made me realize how important it is to support local nonprofits, since they are working for the intent of helping others.
i believe this dashboard helps solve the big issue of not having an overall space to organize all the resources that make up apa! i was only able to work on the volunteering section, but would like to work on the rest of the tabs as the next steps.
