Enhancing Community Engagement for Habitat for Humanity's ReStore

Overview

Objective:
My goal was to design a unified digital platform that enhances community engagement through donations, shopping, and volunteering at Habitat for Humanity's ReStore.

Challenge:
The main challenge was to intertwine community support with individual actions on their ReStore platform, ensuring that every interaction was meaningful and impactful.

Process and Development

Research and Insights:

At the start of this project, I conducted an in-depth analysis of how users interacted with Habitat's existing platforms. It became clear that there were significant limitations hindering user engagement:

These insights highlighted the need for a redesigned platform that could address these barriers, making the donation, shopping, and volunteering processes more accessible and meaningful. This realization sparked the core idea of my project—integrating personal impact narratives directly into the digital experience to connect users' actions with the tangible impacts of their contributions.

Design Iterations:

My project evolved through several key stages:

Initial Concept: I envisioned a marketplace that not only displayed items for sale but also highlighted the stories behind them—from their origins to their impact.
User Feedback: Usability testing was crucial. Feedback pointed out issues like navigation difficulties and feature redundancy, which made me rethink and redesign to enhance user experience and interface clarity.
Final Design: Incorporating this feedback, I refined the task flows and overhauled the navigation structure to make it more intuitive.

Design Process

Defining the Task Flows:

Following this selection process, I defined the task flows by mapping out the user journey for each of the chosen solutions, ensuring that every step was intuitive and aligned with the overall goal of enhancing user engagement and simplifying interactions.

The following were the insights from the test:

Ideation:

After identifying these gaps, I engaged in several focused brainstorming sessions to generate a range of solutions. I organized these ideas into distinct categories to streamline the ideation process. Ultimately, I selected the ideas that were not only the most feasible but also directly targeted at addressing the identified challenges. This methodical approach ensured that the solutions chosen were well-suited to effectively solve the core issues.

Designing Digital Wireframes:

Focused on intuitive placement of elements within the app's screens, using feedback from research and testing to refine the design.

Usability Testing for the Low-Fidelity Prototypes:
I conducted usability tests on the low-fidelity prototypes to gauge the app's usability. These tests were crucial in evaluating the effectiveness of the design decisions made at this early stage of development. They provided valuable insights into how users might interact with the final product. The feedback from these tests led to the identification of several areas for improvement:

Familiarize the User with Symbols: It became evident that users needed to be familiarized with the symbols used in the app before they began using them. This highlighted the need for a more intuitive user interface that didn't rely heavily on the user's prior knowledge or experience.

More Encouraging Impact System: Users felt the need for a more encouraging impact system. The current system did not sufficiently motivate or reward users for their actions, which could potentially affect their long-term engagement with the app.

'Add Similar' Button Disruption: Feedback indicated that the 'Add Similar' button was disrupting the user's purchase flow. This button was intended to enhance user experience by suggesting similar items, but it seemed to be having the opposite effect. It became clear that the placement and function of this button needed to be reconsidered.

Heuristic Evaluation:

Systematic assessment of the interface against usability principles led to actionable improvements.

Final Prototype:

Incorporated feedback for an intuitive interface, motivating impact system, and seamless user experience.

Summary

Conclusion:
The project successfully created a unified digital platform for Habitat for Humanity's ReStore, enhancing community engagement through streamlined processes for donations, shopping, and volunteering. By integrating personal impact narratives into the digital experience, the platform now effectively connects users’ actions with the tangible impacts of their contributions.

This transformation addresses the initial challenges, making each interaction meaningful and impactful, and sets a strong foundation for further enhancements to user engagement and community support.

Learnings and Outcomes:
The project offered significant learnings and outcomes, which shaped the design process and final product. Key insights include:

Gained valuable insights about the design process and the importance of community engagement.
Recognized the importance of intertwining individual actions with broader community impacts.
Understood the critical role of user feedback and usability testing in refining the design.
Identified areas of improvement to ensure a final design that was intuitive and user-friendly.
Emphasized on the iterative design process, which was instrumental in achieving a product that effectively addressed the identified challenges.

Enhancing Community Engagement for Habitat for Humanity's ReStore

Overview

Process and Development

Research and Insights:

Design Iterations:

Design Process

Defining the Task Flows:

The following were the insights from the test:

Ideation:

Designing Digital Wireframes:

Familiarize the User with Symbols: It became evident that users needed to be familiarized with the symbols used in the app before they began using them. This highlighted the need for a more intuitive user interface that didn't rely heavily on the user's prior knowledge or experience.

More Encouraging Impact System: Users felt the need for a more encouraging impact system. The current system did not sufficiently motivate or reward users for their actions, which could potentially affect their long-term engagement with the app.

Heuristic Evaluation:

Final Prototype:

Summary

Gained valuable insights about the design process and the importance of community engagement.

Recognized the importance of intertwining individual actions with broader community impacts.

Understood the critical role of user feedback and usability testing in refining the design.

Identified areas of improvement to ensure a final design that was intuitive and user-friendly.

Emphasized on the iterative design process, which was instrumental in achieving a product that effectively addressed the identified challenges.