Overview
UXPALA is a nonprofit that strives to uplift the UX community by increasing educational opportunities, connecting members, and supporting professional growth. At the moment, UXPALA's website lacks content and is undergoing a rebrand. Part of the improvements being made are for the volunteers we rely heavily on for support. I had to create a landing page for volunteers.
UXPALA is a nonprofit that strives to uplift the UX community by increasing educational opportunities, connecting members, and supporting professional growth. At the moment, UXPALA's website lacks content and is undergoing a rebrand. Part of the improvements being made are for the volunteers we rely heavily on for support. I had to create a landing page for volunteers.
Role
UX/UI Designer
UX/UI Designer
Objective
Design the volunteer landing page for new & seasoned UX professionals
Design the volunteer landing page for new & seasoned UX professionals
Tools
Figma, Miro, Mural
Figma, Miro, Mural
Duration
Two-week design sprint
View the solution
Problem
UXPALA relies heavily on volunteers to provide an outside perspective, host events, conduct research, and recruit other volunteers. UXPALA is ramping up its recruiting efforts and wants to welcome a diverse group of volunteers. Improvements need to be made to support our volunteer's journey and it begins with our onboarding process. Currently, when volunteers signup they are linked to a page on UXPALA's website that is text-heavy detailing important information for them to have.
Design Process
Analyze User Research
Persona
Our users consist of new and seasoned UX professionals.
Primary - Seasoned UXer
2-10 years of experience, trying to stay current, network, mentor, and really be in tune with the UX community
Primary - UX Newcomer
Someone who just graduated from Bootcamp or from school and they need resources to get the experience they need
Business Goals
• Support volunteer journeys for Directors & Non-Directors
• Account for key information needed along the way
• Necessary onboarding steps for UXPALA
• The volunteer knows where to go to seek help
User Goals
• Plan for someone who knows little about UX
• Layout info in an easy, scalable way for important info
• Language should support the key journey moment
• Action-oriented during onboarding
How might we design a landing page that is engaging and provides all the information volunteers need to be successful on their volunteer journey?
User Story
To better illustrate the problem I'm trying to solve, I used a user story to ground my design decisions.
When I signup to volunteer for UXPALA, I expect direction to know what's expected of me in the first few days/weeks, so I can quickly onboard and be more familiar with UXPALA duties.
Duties include having access to UXPALA's slack channels, google drive, initial team-related items, and more.
High-level User Flow
I used this flow to understand the steps our users must take to have a successful signup process and feel like contributing members to our organization.
Research
I didn't want to reinvent the wheel if I didn't have to so I researched what other non-profits and companies we're doing to onboard new employees and volunteers. I wanted to understand what these organizations and companies were doing well and what could be improved. I was searching for an onboarding process that would fit our business and user goals.
These are the companies and organizations whose onboarding process stood out to me: Trello, Notion, Hot Topic, NYU, United Nations, and Microsoft.
Choosing between these companies and organizations, I narrowed it down to Microsoft's buddy system. The evidence supporting the success of their pilot buddy program with 600 employees was the driving factor to suggest we implement a buddy system for our volunteers.
Microsoft’s Onboarding Buddy
"After their first week on the job, new hires with buddies were 23% more satisfied with their overall onboarding experience compared to those without buddies."
"After their first week on the job, new hires with buddies were 23% more satisfied with their overall onboarding experience compared to those without buddies."
IDEATE
After determining the key features necessary for volunteers to have a successful onboarding process, we sketched. My team sketched out ideas for the visual design of the landing page to share and decide on a design direction.
After two iterations, this is my final sketch for the volunteer landing page
Design
Low-fidelity Wireframes
These are iterations of my wireframes showing how they evolved after multiple iterations.
Final Design
Using feedback from our content strategy team, this is the final volunteer landing page.
Next steps & Takeaways
Next Steps
• Moving forward, if there is time I would like to user-test my prototypes and get feedback to improve my designs.
• What I would do differently is interview current volunteers about their experience onboarding to help guide my design decisions.
Takeaways
• I've learned how beneficial it is to chat with my team about every design decision we are making and ask "why?" Will this solution solve our problem and help us reach our business goals? Will it resonate with our users?
