Gifti
A tool that allows you to give wisely
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Project Vision
Design a giving platform that is transparent
for people to give with confidence
My Role
Product Designer and UX Researcher
Team
Silvia Kim
Personal Passion Project
The Problem
Charitable giving is one of the many ways that people help one another in a global scale. However, the main concerns that givers have is the legitimacy of the organization/organizer and the impact of the cause. In essence, they question if the funds are actually going towards the people that need it the most.
As a result...
“Not knowing whether the donation is being used appropriately”
“The thought of is this really going to the place I want it to go?”
“I don’t know for sure if my money is being used to help or if the charity is being dishonest with their practices”
How might we gain the trust of givers in the charitable giving space?
Solution
Gifti is a charitable giving platform that primarily allows users to contribute to ‘gifts’ for people in need. Current fundraising applications are centered around raising money but the main problem is the trust with the legitimacy of the organization. Gifty aims to give users the confidence to give by providing useful information to make a wise decision.
Contribute to Gifts!
Gift essential items to those in need. You can select to which items you want to contribute to and write a note too.
Stay Up To Date
A glance on the background story and updates of how the funds have impacted those in need.
Gift Wisely
Examine the organization rating before gifting to make an informed decision.
Design Process
Research
Problem Framing
Survey
Market Analysis
Competitive Analysis
Personas
Design
Sketching
Wireframe
High Fidelity Mockup
Interactive Prototype
Evaluate
Usability Testing
Design Iterations
Validation
Problem Framing
It started with two words and two words only: group and gifting
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I began by exploring what those two words could mean. For group, does it have to be people you know or don’t know. For gift, does it have to be tangible or not tangible. When put together, these were the outcomes of each combination.
Whatever the combination, the main goal is to help people find each other and help them find/give a gift together.
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I decided to narrow down to the combination of:
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gifting something tangible as a group of people you already know
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charitable giving
Research
I sent out a survey regarding these two paths. In the meantime while I waited to for the responses, I executed market and competitive analysis in the charitable giving space.
Charitable Giving in America
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$410 billion given to charities by Americans in 2018, up to 5%
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70% of total giving comes from individuals
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63 million individuals vonlunteer time, talents, and energy
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It’s easy amid press stores about the projects of large foundations or corporations, to forget that the vast majority of American philanthropy is carried out by individuals
Competitive Analysis
In order to construct a concise and solid foundation for Gifti, I ventured to see what current charitable giving platforms were already doing and what user goals they were not reaching.
I found that only one of the main competitors efforts of raising money was centered around custom t shirts.
Survey Results
Group gifting
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people don’t like it that their individual contribution gets lost in the group effort.
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It’s hard to decide on one single gift as a group
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most of the time one person ends up paying most upfront and gets paid back way later which is frustrating.
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Charitable giving
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people were doubting/questioning the legitimacy of the org and weather the funds are actually going to those in need
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There were much more amount of responses for the charitable giving which led me to decide to narrow down on that topic.
External News Influence
While doing this project, I came across the stories of detained immigrant children. There were a lot of people organizing items to give them. Instead of money, why not gather support for basic essential needs like food, clothes, hygene items etc…?
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This strengthened my passion to focus on charitable giving even more.
Persona
I further synthesized the interview results and came up with the following persona.
Ideating: Sketching
I sketched out a variety of versions in order to quickly explore different possibilities of what this platform could look like.
Wireframe
I took the sketches and transferred them onto digital format to better visualize the platform.
High Fidelity
User Testing
I moderated user feedback sessions with 5 users and took the below steps to conduct them.
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Warm up to put users at ease and introduce the project
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Describe the scenario, set up the context, and let users use the app while thinking out loud
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Ask follow up questions and gather feedback
User Feedback Results
All users liked the idea of raising funds around items that would directly impact those in need. However, there were mixed reviews. Half of the users responded positively and half responded not so positively.
Having an updates feature was not enough to gain some users’ trust in believing that they were giving to a legitimate org.
This was a discouraging feedback since the main problem I wanted to tackle was to gain their trust in believing that they are making the right decision by donating to the right organization.
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With this feedback, I rethought my design and went back to see what was was missing.
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Other feedback I gained:
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Some users were confused on where to click to click on the main homepage to donate
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The main headline page takes too much space and not much useful information
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There is just too much going on in each of the item section
Reflection, Research, Refined Design Goals
Help users feel confident donating when they don’t know anything about the organizer or organization.
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During the initial research, I was too focused on what other charitable giving platforms currently offer. I realized I should have focused my research more on how to identify the legitimacy of a non profit organization or organizer.
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I started to research current methods of identifying how the legitimacy of an organization. There were existing platforms that already were doing so:
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Charity Watch
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Charity Navigator
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In addition, I discovered that there is be a lot of useful information from the IRS form 990 that all non profits must file.
Refined Features
At this stage, I decided it was critical to add an organization/organizer rating feature where it lists crucial information around the establishment, the organizer, how funds are used, etc..
High Fidelity Design Iteration Prototype
Taking into account the results I gathered from the user testing session, I made these design decisions:
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Relocate the updates section into the story tab
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Insert an Org Rating tab
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Remove radial progress bar in each item card
User Testing
I followed the same user testing process from earlier but this time, I added additional questions.
Measuring Success
To measure the success of the new design, I inserted additional questions to help me validate the design decision.
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Q: With this website application available, how would you rate your confidence level contributing to a cause?
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Q: With this website application available, how would you rate your confidence level contributing to an organization and/or organizer?
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Q: Which pieces of information helped guide you into making your decision?
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Q: With this website application available ,how likely is it that you would come back to use it?
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Q: Would you recommend this to a friend? Why or why not?
Results
This time around, I was able to gather a lot of positive feedback. Below is a summary of how users rated their confidence, future retention, and friend recommendation.
Design Decisions
In order to examine the changes that have been implemented in lieu of the first iteration, I place a side by side comparison.
More useful information at a glance
Call to action more clear when Contribute tab set as main page
Quick view of organization rating
Remove radial progress bar to have a
less congested look that puts focus on the contribute action
Reflections
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Even after iterating on the design, I might not get the results I expect. I think it’s crucial to recognize that it might take a lot of tries and I may fail to bring in positive results. But through these bumps, I am able to learn my mistakes and make an even better design out of it.
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Through this project, I realize that I should test earlier even when the design is not as polished. Getting feedback early saves time and effort in the long run
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