About the Project

Hopeful Inc. is a startup tech company catering to the nonprofit sector lacking data analytic tools to strategically increase impactful online visibility.
Hopeful is helping nonprofits increase donations by enabling them to tell targeted and compelling stories, monitoring supporter engagement, and empowering them to make data-driven decisions.
Hopeful, Inc. looks to fill the unmet need of users who need actionable data by incorporating advanced analytics and machine learning AI into their platform.

My Role

User Research, Visual Design, Wireframes, Functional Prototyping, and Usability Testing

UX Challenge + Research Insights

To establish how Hopeful can better serve the needs of their users we needed to know what the NPO employee’s realities are, and uncover their common problem areas. This allowed us concentrate our efforts on their pain points, and where there is opportunity for improvement.
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We interviewed 8 NPO employee's with varying degrees of authority asking a broad range of questions designed to tease out how our users were collecting and interacting with the data they had access to.
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The results of our findings were:

Users don’t see the value in all the data they have access to therefore, they cannot justify the use of strictly regulated funds for comprehensive data analytics.

The user’s disorganized databases and limited human resources block the user from accurate data analysis.

‍The user’s current goal is to increase visibility because they assume social media interaction will convert to donor dollars but can’t prove it.

Due to limited human resources, the user needs to view social media analytics from all their various platforms in one place.

‍Users don’t feel comfortable adopting robust tools unless there is proof of their value and can be used by all skill levels in the organization.

"I have an MBA, but
I'm no statistician

Meet Liz

TITLE:
Director of Communications

ABOUT:
Liz's official title is Director or Communications, a department of one, however she wears many hats during her day to day at the NPO she works for. She is often on rails and when its Gala season it's all hands on deck.
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SCENARIO:
Liz is excited about a new brand ambassador program she's implemented at her NPO. She wants to engage different demographics because she believes it will lead to an increase in donations and overall mission visibility.

She has decided to run the program for one quarter to see if this increases donations. She currently measures success of ambassador posts with views, likes, and reach but can't prove that is has any correlation with the increased donations or event attendance. This paired with the donation records and donor databases in disarray makes any kind of deeper analysis seem impossible. To continue the program she needs to present her results to the board who have historically been slow to recognize the value of social media.
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BEHAVIORS
Makes due with very little
Uses her gut instinct when making strategy decisions
Tired from the multiple roles she must play
Volunteers at a local soup kitchen during her free time
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PAIN POINTS
‍Strict budgeting requirements
Time and personnel limitations
Data spread across clashing platforms
Managing multiple social media accounts
Her board is not convinced of the value of her marketing strategies
Lack of decipherable and therefore actionable data

NEEDS
A platform that can show correlation between social media engagement and donations dollars
An intuitive tool that allows for easy exportable visuals and information
Robust IT Support from a human

Design Decisions & Solutions

All of the choices made were focused around ease of use and user control.
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CUSTOM GRAPH GENERATION
Create correlative graphs of different metrics to more easily spot trends in your social media data.

QUICK REPORTING
Custom and recurring report functions enable the user to create reports on the spot based on custom metrics as well as schedule reports to recur based on user preference.

CARD LAYOUT
Modular in nature, it is meant to be customizable while maintaining a modern look and feel
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FRIENDLY ICONOGRAPHY
Easily approachable with a sense of delight, used to take the edge off when compared to Hopeful’s counterparts in the market
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TAB NAVIGATION
Simple and easy to orient the user wherever they are in the platform‍

Project Reflections

The NPO space is often obstructed by a lack of funds, time and personnel. As a result, employees and volunteers wear many hats dealing with day to day operations, and have limited ability to implement upgrades.
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A simple and easy to understand interface emphasizing the requisite data to make informed social media marketing decisions at a competitive price point in our opinion will set Hopefuls platform above the fray.

Next Steps

More integration options including Salesforce, Hootsuite, Mailchimp, Hubspot, among others
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Continued development of storytelling AI
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Testing testing testing!

Hopeful, Inc.