Sickle Cell Anemia Association of São Paulo
UX Research | UX Design | UI Design
My Role
I worked as a Product Designer and was involved during in all stages from User Interview and Ideation to Evaluation also designing the UI components for the new screens. The team worked in an organic way and everyone worked in all stages.
Problem Statement & Hypothesis
The São Paulo Sickle Cell Anemia Association was adapting to the new norm brought about by the COVID-19 pandemic by transitioning to digital platforms. However, they faced challenges in gathering necessary funds and recruiting volunteers.
Hypothesis: The team noticed some obstacles in the way their content was presented on their website and the lack of user-friendly donation options, which could be obstructing their efforts to raise funds and attract volunteers.
The Team
Thays Santos - Product Designer
Anna Leticia Duarte - Product Designer
Amanda Menoti - Product Designer
Daniel Brito - Product Designer
Thaynara Andrade - Product Designer
Goals
Our foremost objective is to determine the barriers that prevent people from volunteering and donating to the Sickle Cell Anemia Association. Our ultimate goal is to improve the association's outreach to these communities.
The Process
We worked the Product Discovery process in order to deeply understand the problems faced by AAFESP and find a solution that suits their needs.
Alignment
During the alignment we talked to the organisation through video calls and we could also get information from them during streaming’s channel live events.
In order to define the problem to be addressed, we put all pains pointed out by the institution in an affinity mapping and we also divided it in three categories: the pains we were sure they had, the ones we had questions and our assumptions. With this information in hands, we could effectively align our knowledge with the organisation.
The team then voted to work with one of the problems mentioned during the alignment, the financial problem.
Research
After the alignment we made the research to be able to define a meaningful problem involving the financial problem.
The research methods were:
→ Analysis of the website of other organisations
→ Interview with people who work or provide services to organisations
→ Interview with a company that has a partnership with an organisation
→ Form sent to people who contribute or have already contributed financially to an organisation.
→ Analysis of the website of other organisations
→ Interview with people who work or provide services to organisations
→ Interview with a company that has a partnership with an organisation
→ Form sent to people who contribute or have already contributed financially to an organisation.
Findings during the research
Donation
- It is important that the website catch attention to the donation button
- Allowing donations to be made directly through digital channels gives the donor more confidence and facilitates the process
- There are people willing to donate with recurrence, it is interesting to have this option available on the website
- Some organisations have a loyalty program for people who donate on a recurring basis- It is important to have a digital channel for donations. It shows the organisation is actively working.
- Allowing donations to be made directly through digital channels gives the donor more confidence and facilitates the process
- There are people willing to donate with recurrence, it is interesting to have this option available on the website
- Some organisations have a loyalty program for people who donate on a recurring basis- It is important to have a digital channel for donations. It shows the organisation is actively working.
Transparency
- 100% of the people interviewed (individuals and companies) consider important to find transparency and accountability on the website to trust in the organisation
- Companies use transparency information in their social responsibility reports
- Site visitors hope to find out what the organisation's actions are and their impact on society
- Companies use transparency information in their social responsibility reports
- Site visitors hope to find out what the organisation's actions are and their impact on society
- Transparency is essential. Both to keep donors and to attract new ones (whether individuals or companies)
Companies
- Contribution can be made by donating money, supplies or corporate volunteering
- Partnerships can generate visibility for companies
- Partnerships can generate visibility for companies
Pandemic trend: companies that have social responsibility may want to pivot a bit of social responsibility for organisations that develop solutions for the covid-19 problems.
We organised the findings in a Card Sorting, we also created an Insight Board and later, Job Story in order to refine our problem statement.
Ideation
We decided to change the website and give emphases to the donations. The team made a competitor analysis with information from other organisations
Crazy 8
During the crazy 8 we used the information collected by the benchmark to explore some ideas.
We decided to prioritise the ideas below:
- Actions, ongoing projects, "What's going on now?"
- Donation Buttons, donation in stages 1,2,3,4
- Motivating message, "Why donate?", "I want to help"
- Actions + testimonials
- How often to donate
- Friendly companies, partnerships
- Transparency Portal, total collected
- Donation Buttons, donation in stages 1,2,3,4
- Motivating message, "Why donate?", "I want to help"
- Actions + testimonials
- How often to donate
- Friendly companies, partnerships
- Transparency Portal, total collected
Creation
Wireframes
We developed the mid-fidelity wireframes based on the insights from the previous stage.
Prototype
It is possible to check the high fidelity prototype watching the video below.
You can also explore the clickable prototype.
Validation
After the redesign of the AAFESP website on Figma, we went to the validation phase, where we would find out if everything we had built was solving the problem.
Starting this step, we carried out a remote Usability Test on Zoom with three users using a pre-defined script. The purpose of this test was to find out if the redesigned website is capable of instigating donation and fundraising, in addition to transmitting confidence to the possible donor. The interviewees were people who already contribute to social causes or donate to organisations frequently.
Starting this step, we carried out a remote Usability Test on Zoom with three users using a pre-defined script. The purpose of this test was to find out if the redesigned website is capable of instigating donation and fundraising, in addition to transmitting confidence to the possible donor. The interviewees were people who already contribute to social causes or donate to organisations frequently.
With these interviews, we validated some initial information and were also able to verify points of improvement to be worked on in the refinement stage. We separated the most relevant information and prioritised how often it occurs.
In summary, we note that according to the test results, we believe that we have successfully achieved our goal of drawing attention to the donation and transmitting confidence in the website. The participants brought us some insights and specific improvements that will be worked on in the refinement stage, but in general, all participants responded well to the new layout proposed by us.
Refinement
During this phase, we organised the data collected from the previous stage and applied some of the insights from users in the prototype. We filtered the information from the interviews and organised based on the complexity of change and gain with the recommended improvements to suggest to the organisation.
Based on the recommendations raised, we made an effort and impact matrix to assist us in what possible improvements can be made at first and which can be scheduled to be made in the future, according to the effort we would have to make these changes and the impact of this for the user.
Learnings & Conclusions
The first gain from this project, with no doubt, was to help a real and good cause. The organisation needs help and they liked our solution. We made a document so they could continue with the development.
Secondly, learn how to work entirely remotely with people you never talked or seen before is proof that is possible to collaborate if the whole team is willing to it. Because of that, we called our team Design without Borders (Design Sem Fronteiras in Portuguese). We also had the chance to present on Youtube, something that also brings a big experience. It is possible to check our here (in Portuguese).
Tools
We collaborated all the time mixing Miro with calls on Discord. For the low fidelity wireframes we used Miro and for the high fidelity, Figma. We created a documentation for the organisation using Notion and it is possible to check here.
