I brought GFTD’s vision to life, creating a donation platform for K-12 education fundraising
GFTD is a digital wishlist and gift-giving mobile app with a mission to streamline the process of sending and receiving gifts. They wanted to take their business into the charitable space by providing a wishlist-based platform focusing on fundraising for K-12 education. To help realize this vision, we designed a desktop experience that enables potential donors to easily find and contribute to classroom fundraisers.
CLIENT
GFTD
TIMELINE
6 weeks (Jun - Aug 2023)
MY ROLE
UX Designer
TEAM
3 UX Designers
In the Baltimore City Public School System, teachers spend $300-500+ per year out-of-pocket for their students and often overextend themselves to overcome financial barriers
It’s important for potential donors to easily find and contribute to their fundraising campaigns. I interviewed both teachers and donors to understand the needs and goals of both groups.
Leading crowdfunding platforms focus on transparency by communicating the impact of the donations & providing cost breakdowns
I analyzed four fundraising platforms that our target group of teachers use, which included three specifically tailored to education. Each platform had features that provide transparency through project updates, but only two provided detailed cost breakdowns.
The first prototype for the donation flow prioritized transparent fundraiser information
To foster “donation with confidence”, we incorporated transparency from the moment a potential donor reaches the landing page and each step of the way until confirming the donation.
By shifting the focus of the landing page to how the donation process works, users gained more clarity about what to expect in the donation experience
The landing page lacked sufficient information about the donation process, leading to confusion at subsequent pages. Highlighting transparency was not the most effective use of the landing page. Instead, we prioritized a walkthrough of the donation process.
We also made the experience more intuitive by reworking the flow of selecting items
I incorporated standard e-commerce patterns to ensure an intuitive layout and flow.
High-fidelity Prototype
Illustrating the full donation experience — onboarding, browsing, donating
Reflection
While interviewing teachers, I was moved by their efforts to make the learning experience an enjoyable one and empathized with the challenges they face regarding out-of-pocket costs. Hearing about their dedication to teaching, I reflected on the teachers who have made an impact on me.
This motivated me to use this research to ideate different possibilities to support teachers in ways that current products are failing to.
In addition to building features, I conducted an audit of our wireframes and created a Figma component library for the team to promote consistency and improve design efficiency. This will serve as a foundation to build on as the website continues to scale for teachers, nurses, and other user groups.