Digital Influx - Product Design
Company Project (NDA) / Insights
Digital Influx is an international EdTech company specializing in Design and Product. The mission is to bridge education and employment through innovative e-learning methods, interactive activities, and engaging games.
Time 3 months
Tools Figma, Fig jam, Canva, Trello, Teams
Team 3
Project Brief
Digital Influx, an ed-tech company focused on providing online UX design education, is expanding its mission to address the growing global demand for UX designers. Recognizing the importance of early exposure to UX concepts, the company aims to empower K-12 students in underserved communities by offering free UX design courses. This initiative seeks to bridge the skills gap, inspire young learners, and create pathways for students to succeed in a design-driven world.
Digital Influx plans to launch a dedicated foundation website to support this ambitious mission. This platform will serve as a hub for attracting donations and sponsorships, showcasing the transformative potential of UX education while enabling donors to engage meaningfully with the cause. The decision stemmed from both the company’s strategic expansion goals and the challenges with the existing sponsorship system, limited to a single page on the main website.
My Role
As part of a startup, I took on multiple responsibilities. My main role was designing the Foundation website, but I also contributed to various other projects as needed.
Product designer
Collaborated with two designers to initiate the process, conduct research, design the full website in Figma, and develop prototypes.
UX Researcher
Analyzed the existing UX kids' course, conducted user research to identify pain points, and applied targeted strategies that boosted user engagement by 25%.
Learning Designer
Developed a UX project case study sample in Canva for course learning materials.
Design Process
Following the company’s decision to develop a dedicated foundation website, we adopted the Double Diamond approach to uncover key challenges in their existing sponsorship system, which was confined to a single page on their main website.
Current Challenges
Limited Visibility:
Metrics: The sponsorship page was buried under a dropdown menu labelled "Get Involved," leading to low discoverability. Only 5% of website visitors accessed the sponsorship page, resulting in low engagement.
Overwhelming Layout:
Feedback: 70% of surveyed users felt confused between the "Get Sponsored" and "Become a Sponsor" options, and many expressed that the forms were too basic and did not offer enough flexibility to make a donation they were comfortable with.
Lack of Emotional Engagement:
Feedback: The platform failed to showcase the impact of donations, missing an opportunity to inspire potential donors. 65% of users expressed the need for compelling success stories and visuals.
Navigational Challenges
Metrics: Poor navigation made it difficult for users to locate relevant information about the company, sponsorship opportunities, or contact options. The average time to locate the donation form exceeded 1 minute, contributing to a high bounce rate of 72% and task completion rate of 60%.
Goals
Attract Donations
Create a platform that encourages contributions through a seamless and engaging experience.
Update Overall Design
Develop a visually appealing and user-friendly platform that simplifies navigation.
Engage and Retain Donors
Use storytelling, updates, and social proof to build trust and encourage repeat contributions.
Enhance Visibility
Establish a dedicated site with a clear mission and optimized navigation.
Increase Transparency
Showcase the tangible impact of donations through success stories, student testimonials, and progress indicators.
Flexible Donation Options
Offer a range of donation amounts to encourage contributions of any size.
User Research
We initiated the research by defining our target audience for the foundation website and identifying key segments:
General Public: Individuals interested in supporting educational initiatives for underprivileged children.
Tech and Design Professionals: Experts who recognize the importance of UX education and may wish to contribute.
Charity Organizations: Groups looking to sponsor educational programs in UX design.
Educators: Teachers and administrators seeking to enhance educational resources.
Non-Profit Groups: Organizations focused on improving educational opportunities for underserved communities.
To gather insights, we conducted a survey with 29 participants and interviews with 5 professionals.
Key Insights
78% highlighted transparency and accountability as a deciding factor. Users wanted clear information about how funds are utilized.
65% valued emotional connection through impactful storytelling. Donors preferred visual updates and success stories.
79.3% preferred one-time donation contributions, while 13.8% favoured a monthly subscription model.
64.8% of users prefer preferred engaging via social media.
Competitor Analysis
We analyzed five similar donation platforms to identify effective design and engagement strategies:
Conveyed Purpose: The organizations clearly outlined their mission and values, allowing users to grasp the platform's objectives quickly.
Donation Indicators: Displaying the number of previous donations created a friendly and trustworthy experience.
Flexible Options: Offering users the choice to volunteer or donate based on their preferences was popular across these platforms.
Clear CTA Buttons: Each platform featured prominently placed, easy-to-find call-to-action buttons on the landing page for donations.
Trust Elements: Integrated success stories and regular updates fostered transparency and trust among users.
Clean Interface: Effective use of whitespace and a simple layout enhanced functionality and user-friendliness.
Ideation and Strategy
Using insights from research and competitor analysis, we prioritized platform features using SWOT Analysis to evaluate strengths, weaknesses, opportunities, and threats and MoSCoW Analysis to identify essential (Must-Have), desirable (Should-Have), optional (Could-Have), and deferred (Won’t-Have) features.
Design Decisions: A user-centric approach
Simplicity
Create a simple and consistent user journey through the platform, and make the ability to make donations easier with the use of clear CTAs and fields.
Condensed Navigation
Simplify the navigation bar with key sections and easy to navigate CTAs.
Trust & Transparency
Ensure trust and transparency in the donation process by adding student testimonials so users know how their donations are being used.
Responsive Design
Ensure the design is responsive over multiple platforms for ease of use.
Clarity
Create a clear section on what the company is about and include the mission, impact, story, vision, and the team.
Feasible
Work within constraints of the existing platform.
High-Fidelity Wireframes
Home Page
The new homepage showcases student testimonials and highlights our partnered schools, enhancing trust and transparency. It provides clarity on our focus and communicates who we are as a company and what we do.
The navigation bar is streamlined for ease of use, enhancing the overall user experience. This change was well-received during user testing.
New navigation menu
Old navigation menu
Donation request form page
The donation page features a more organized and informative design, including a simplified donation form paired with an FAQ section for user assistance. It also provides flexible donation options, allowing for both one-time contributions and monthly subscriptions. To address our target user groups, the form allows users to indicate whether they are individual donors or company representatives.
New donation request form page
Old donation request form page
Contact Us Page
The Contact Us page is now more organized and offers an easier way to reach out. It includes a messaging form along with essential contact details for seamless communication. Additionally, social media links have been integrated to align with users’ preferred communication channels and enhance engagement.
New contact us
Old contact us
About Us Page
The About Us page includes our story, mission, global reach, vision, and team. The website adheres to brand guidelines, ensuring that key messages are prominently featured.
Development: Prototypes
We created prototypes for the web version of the website and conducted usability tests with users, resulting in a 30% increase in usability. Additionally, the redesigned navigation structure reduced the time to locate the donation form to less than 20 seconds, increasing the task completion rate by 40%. Following this, we developed responsive designs for mobile and tablet versions. The website is being developed and launched soon.
