Empowering people who use technology to advance the public good.

Everyday people generate powerful ideas that can change the world. DemocracyLab is a nonprofit that helps tech-for-good projects launch by connecting skilled volunteers to projects that need them. Hackathons are a great way for DLab to connect volunteers with projects for a day.

Scope: Project leader event registration flow

Role: Testing & UX

Timeline: December 21 - April 2022

 
 

ASSIGNMENT

DLab project leaders have trouble finding the right volunteers for hackathons. They also lack a way of signing volunteers up before hackathons, and need a way to communicate instructions and vet volunteers beforehand.

 
 

Background

DEFINING THE SCOPE

The main project goal was to move the event registration process from Eventbrite to the DLab website. This change would allow for more engagement from the volunteers and help project owners plan better for their events. We also hoped this would improve attendance and reduce event volunteer fallout.

My MVP for the project was to design the user flow for project leaders to register for events. Allowing project leaders to create event profiles would help to give them more control of the information gathered and requested from volunteers.

Illustration by Eventornado

 

Illustration by Eventornado

 

WHY?

  • There is significant volunteer drop-off after they sign up on Eventbrite

  • Lack of engagement with volunteers on which projects they can help with

  • Project owners need a head count before the event

  • There is no option to allow communication between project owners and volunteers

  • There is no way to ascertain the volunteers’ interest or their skills prior to the hackathon

 

Research

Our UX researcher surveyed three of our current project leaders. Their time with DLab ranges from a few months to a few years. We hoped to find more insight into how we are serving project owners.

INSIGHTS

The questions we asked ranged from “How is DLab serving your project needs?” to “How many different websites do you use to manage your project?”

 
 
 

Find The Problem

 

EXPLORE SOLUTIONS

We needed a concept in order to know which direction to take the project owners onboarding event registration process. The first concept I created was a one-page registration page. Through our findings, we heard that many project owners wanted to participate in hackathons but were extremely busy. The one-page registration would allow for a quick and easy solution to the problem of not having time to scroll through multiple-page signup forms.

 
 
 

FIRST CONCEPT

 
 
 
 
 

REFINE AND DEFINE

After walking the team through my one-page registration process, we discussed a few things to improve, and how we can provide better ways to serve the project leader. With time constraints on the dev team and a looming launch date, we decided to continue with the current multi-step registration process to maintain consistency.

 

Design

KEY MOMENTS

Moving forward, I designed a user flow that would meet the needs of both DLab and the project leaders. Maintaining our site’s consistency as well as the project leader’s needs, I incorporated several new features to help bring forward solutions.

Below are a few key moments.

 
 
 
 

Takeaways

FOLLOW THE DATA

Interviewing our project leaders allowed us to use their pain points as our guiding light. I designed for the process to be time efficient and effectively communicate the needed information to volunteers, while also maintaining our timeline and empowering our dev team.

I hope in the future to test our finished process.

DESIGN MATTERS

My goal for this projects was to create a project leader sign up process that was seamless and provided the tools for a great hackathon. Site consistency trumped the new concepts we initially created, but it helped us stay focused and make the most of the resources we had available.

VALUES

DLab connects people with volunteers to create world-changing projects. It is a huge opportunity to help the organization bridge the divide between volunteers and the project leaders.

 

THANK YOU!