Assistance Dog Australia (ADA) is a non-profit organisation
that trains dogs to help people with autism, PTSD and disabilities.
MY ROLE
UX Research, UX Design, UI Design
SUMMARY
Continuing on from previous service design project, I worked in a UX and Service design team of four and designed the online portal based on research of understanding volunteers and stakeholders experience and motivations with Assistance Dogs Australia (ADA).
PROBLEM STATEMENT
As a non-profit organisation with a small team of staff, ADA seeks to enhance communication and engagement with existing and potential volunteers. An online portal would improve volunteer experience as well as reduce time-consuming manual administrative tasks for staff.
PROJECT GOALS
To further develop one of the key concepts defined from previous service design project; an online centralised hub for communication between ADA and volunteers community that focuses on:
1. social sharing, engagement
2. digitalised and engaging training material
3. monitor application and stage of progress with ADA
RESEARCH METHODS
THE DISCOVERY
From desktop research of studying information from previous Service Design team and understanding current state from stakeholder and volunteers through interviews, I have unfolded the following insights.
1. Training Materials
- Adapting training materials to different types of volunteers
- Video demonstrations are more engaging and easier to comprehend.
2. Community Gatherings
Volunteers want to meet more people in the community
3. Application Progress
Volunteer applicants want to be kept informed about application progress.
4. Puppy Sitting
Supervisors have to arrange all of the carers and B&B’ers (lots of emails, phone calls, back and forth), sometimes PE’s need to arrange carers/B&Bers at short notice.
5. Social Media
ADA currently has Facebook group for volunteers and staff to communicate and engage with each other. However, not everyone uses Facebook.
HOW MIGHT WE'S
As a team, we synthesised our findings into how might we's.
1. How might we create a community of puppy educator’s that support and encourage each other and create a positive environment?
2. How might we facilitate self-server and self-learning for low-level enquiries?
3. How might we adapt training materials for different types of volunteers?
4. How might we design a portal support PE with training materials that is both engaging and personalised according to puppy progress?
5. How might we increase transparency between PE’s and ADA while maintaining client/sponsor privacy?
PERSONA
Following our interviews, I combined our findings and were able to refine personas from previous project as well as developed a new persona.
IDEATION
From the research, we married the findings to the online platform solution which helped formulate a great foundation to move into feature ideation and prioritisation. The MVP method is used to prioritise the core functionalities which fulfil the primary goal of the online community hub.
PROTOTYPE
Mid-fi prototype designed in Figma, with 5 user scenarios for the following features.
1. Feed - social engagement; news update
2. Events - create event and RSVP
3. Training - digitalised manual and video demos
4. Community - puppies, volunteers and staff directory and profiles; find a carer
5. Application Progress
puppy profile
An important feature designed for puppy educators to record their puppy's health and progress and share reports or any information with their supervisors. The profile acts like a log book which includes photo album and videos of the puppy, training progress, health, achievements and timeline throughout their journey.
photo album
videos
training progress
health
achievements
timeline
application progress
This automated application system helps keep applicants notified of their application progress and also minimise administrative tasks for staff.
USABILITY TESTING
The usability feedback I received from interview puppy educators are:
1. Training Materials
- Volunteers like to be able to refer back to content and choose chapters easily.
- Video demonstrations are more engaging and easier to comprehend.
2. Community
- Since not everyone uses Facebook, a separate platform is better for everyone to connect.
- Directory of puppies, volunteers and staff is useful to search everyone in the ADA community.
3. Puppy Profile is useful to keep track of health, activities, training, milestones.
4. Events
Volunteers finds the events page useful to search for upcoming events and RSVP.
5. Puppy Profile
ADA currently has Facebook group for volunteers and staff to communicate and engage with each other. However, not everyone uses Facebook.
LEARNING
As this project has very specific users, it is out of our control to randomly select participants for interviews to avoid unbiased findings; client has selectively provided individuals they feel are the best interviewees for research.