Team
- Tiffany Zheng: Graphic Design, Prototyping, Research, Writing
- Mia Gancayco: Ideation, Research, Writing
- Michael Zuo: Development, Research, Writing
Problem and Solution Overview
Most of us want to help others and do good. It’s the reason why we donate to charities. However, our impact is ultimately limited by a) a lack of knowledge around how to give effectively, b) a lack of awareness around the impact of our donations, both large and small, and c) a lack of creative, effective channels to give that we can immediately access. The goal of Effective Giving is to create an app that provides information and resources necessary for making impactful donations. Our app aggregates established research on effective altruism and provides channels to facilitate the giving process to effective charities. By providing an information hub, the Effective Giving app will not only increase the amount of donations toward effective charities, but will also promote collaboration among users in the giving process.
Design Research
Goals, Stakeholders, and Participants
We decided to conduct interviews and contextual inquiries with potential users from three different demographic groups: members of religious groups, members of charitable organizations, and effective altruists. The goals of our research included:
- Understanding the thought process behind the charitable actions of members of each demographic group
- Identifying barriers to regular effective giving
- Identifying barriers to collaboration and discussion in the effective giving process
Our contextual inquiry plan describes our stakeholders and participants and their significance in our design research.
Results and Themes
The results section our our contextual inquiry review outlines the results we obtained from our design research, specifically our key findings and more detailed data from each participant.
The themes and processes section outlines the themes that emerged in our design research and our process of arriving at those themes from the data gathered from our participants.
Task Analysis
The task analysis section details our analysis of user tasks, consisting of our answers to questions that shaped our understanding of what tasks are integral to our design goal and the specific tasks we chose to focus on.
Proposed Design Sketches
Details of our three initial design sketches, each in the context of four integral user tasks. Our design review covers our choice of design and the two specific tasks we chose to pursue.
Written Scenarios and Storyboards
This storyboard “Learning about effective charities”, along with its relevant written scenario, covers the first of our chosen tasks: learning to give effectively.
This storyboard “Giving effectively without sacrificing too much convenience”, along with its relevant written scenario, covers the second of our chosen tasks: giving effectively without sacrificing too much convenience.