Charity Miles

timeframe: 3 weeks

Charity Miles is a free iPhone/Android app that empowers you to earn money for charity while walking, running, or biking. The money earned is provided by sponsors, essentially making everyone who uses the application a 'sponsored athlete', where all of the proceeds are donated to the charity if your choice.

THE PROBLEM

Current users forget to turn on the application before doing activities that could make money.

Potential users close out the application after download without getting passed the first few screens.

THE TASK

Make the application easier to understand and use for new members.
Make it memorable and habit-forming for existing members so that they'll want and remember to use it when they walk everyday.
Create an on-boarding process for new members that gives them just enough information and enticement.
Refine the walk/run/bike process that makes the experience more seamless/automated without taking out all user engagement.

MY ROLE

UX Research; supported by graphic designers.
Liason between my team and the Charity Miles CEO and team members.
All copy, including survey/interview questions, personas, user-stories, in-app, and presentation.
Organization, including assignment of work, ideation activities,information and data color-coding, Trello and Google drive filing.
Design studio and detail reviewer.
Presentation organization and creation.

FINDING THE SOLUTION

After doing surveys and interviews and organizing all of the data, we found that users wanted more information about their activities and their totals earned, as well as a quick way of accessing the charities that they used the most.

We also noticed that many of them liked working out with their friends, and expressed an interested in meeting other Charity Miles members to do activities.

This realization made us decide to focus on the team function within the app, expanding it and encouraging joining and participation in order to create accountability and a more habit-forming experience.

THE PERSONAS

THE DESIGN

After figuring out which features we could implement with the Charity Miles CEO and Developers, we began a design studio, trying to stick somewhat close to the original layout to keep the team size and current users in mind.

We ran tests using a paper prototype before moving on to our high fidelity final prototype.