WeCare is a mobile application that leverages social media and corporate partnerships to improve the donation experience for young adults. It addresses skepticism, feelings of powerlessness, and doubts about the impact of donations.
Skills
User Experience (UX) Design
User Interface (UI) Design
Product Design
Prototyping
Wireframing
Branding
ROLE
Product Designer
Client
MFA Project at RIT
Duration
6 weeks
WeCare Donations app mockups
Background Research
43%
of 23 donation sites provide main information about charities
4%
of donation sites explain how they use a giver's donation
5y
the average person will spend more than five years of their lives on social media
Visual Motivation
Online givers often lack motivation to donate when there is no visual proof of a charity's goals, purposes, and results.
Skepticism
New online givers hesitate to donate due to financial concerns, doubts about impact, and skepticism about transparency.
Social Media Impact
Catastrophes occur year-round, and they are frequently discussed on social media. Given that young adults spend hours on these platforms, there is an opportunity to utilize social media as a new channel for educating them on how to make a real-life impact.
Opportunities
How can we ensure new donors feel confident and informed about the use of their donations?
How can we introduce new generations to donating through mobile applications?
High Level Goals
Transparency
Online donors hesitate when something feels sketchy. Transparency can increase users' trust in charities.
Increase Donations
Making the process easier and more engaging for users can help increase donation numbers.
New Media Channel
Offering causes of interest adds value for users. Customized information can be shared to show relevant causes.
Design Approach
Track Donations
A picture is worth a thousand words. Using photos of real results and a live feed can make online donors feel more secure that their donations are being used for a real cause.
Share Actions
To make the donation process easy and seamless, users don’t have to donate money. They can simply select actions and share them on social media. Our corporate partners will donate $1 each time someone shares an action.
Make It Social
Kindness is contagious. By sharing their donations, users will be spreading the love. They will have the power to select what they care about and transform their social actions into real actions.
WeCare donations app mockups with highlights
Young adults share content daily on social media. With the help of corporate partners, they can transform their social media influence into real-life impact by supporting causes they care about and making their voices heard.
Target Audience
WeCare target audience persona
What is out there?
Donate a Photo
Donate with photos each day instead of money. This approach offers good visual consistency, a modern look, a flat design, and interactions that feel familiar to users.
Charity Miles
Run for donation, an alternative channel that doesn’t require money. It allows you to choose your charity. However, its visual design lacks appeal compared to other applications.
Share the Meal
Focused on ending hunger worldwide, this app incorporates badges and fosters more social interaction compared to other applications. It also operates by sharing pictures, such as meals, and will later prompt for micro-donations.
Kickstarter
A crowdfunding platform where people can support new products, showcasing project progress. Its very minimal and clean design makes navigation easier.
Gaps in the market
Trends
Use of Pictures
The competitive analysis of all the donation applications revealed a predominant use of photographs to engage users. However, these images often feel produced, diminishing the content's authentic appeal.
Human Touch
All donation apps target the human side of users. The interface should be friendly and welcoming, making users feel more comfortable with sharing and donating.
Micro-donations
Micro-donations are popular in online giving applications, primarily because they make it easier to donate in small quantities. However, the use of micro-donations might also create the perception of unrealistic results.
Use Case
Joseph, interested in making a difference but skeptical about the donation process, decides to give WeCare a chance since it doesn’t require monetary donations.
WeCare use case
1. Knowing how it works

Onboarding

To know how the app works, Joseph can go through a simple 3-step-onboarding.

The use of dots at the bottom will let Joseph know how many steps the onboarding has. For convenience, he can skip this information and see it later if he needs help.

WeCare onboarding screens
2. Select A Cause

Causes List

Joseph can filter causes by interest and location. He’ll be provided with a list of causes that he can select from to donate.

A list view with images will give Joseph enough information to have a glimpse about the cause. If he wants to know more of a particular cause, he can click the image to see more content.

Easy Navigation
A tab navigation was chosen for this application because of the nature of its information architecture, which is separated in four main categories: Causes, Track, Alerts, Profile. This way, Joseph can jump between them, without the need of opening a menu.

WeCare causes list screens
3. SEE CAUSES'S PROGRESS

Real Results

To show Joseph that the donations made with this application are real, a live feed of the cause will be shown when clicking to know more about it.

Progressive disclosure is used to hide and show information about the cause. This way, Joseph can see more content on the page at once.

Familiar Faces
To motivate Joseph to donate, the cause’s live feed will have people from Joseph’s network that already are part of the cause.

Live Feed + Community
The charity in charge of the cause, will provide pictures of real results achieved by WeCare donations. This will maintain interest and keep users visiting the live feeds. It will create a sense of community and personal relationship with the cause.

WeCare results screens
4. Create and Share

Engage

Other applications have a standard mode of donating. With We Care, Joseph can choose which action he would like to donate.

To create the post and at the same time keep it fun, Joseph can long press or drag the action to the picture, to add it and later on share it on social media.

Share Actions
In order to donate without money, our corporate partners will donate $1 to Joseph’s cause of choice, daily. He just needs to select an action and create a post that he can share on social media to raise awareness.

Add Personal Touch
To make it more personal, Joseph can add a voice note to his donation post. This way he can create different content each day and send words of encouragement.

WeCare donation through social media screens
5. Track Donations

Transparency

After Joseph shares it on social media, he can keep track of his donations by tapping the track section on the tab menu.

He will be able to track and see cause’s live feed, previous donations made by him and re-donate every 24hrs.

To show his causes, a grid was more convienient, since he already knows some information about his previous causes.

WeCare social proof screens
Inspiration & Style
Let’s Be Social
To connect with millennials, we need to speak their language, using icons and emojis. The goal is to create a friendly and fun interface while maintaining a certain level of seriousness.
WeCare moodboard
WeCare color studies and descriptions
WeCare screen mockup

WeCare Benefits

Users can avoid the feeling of "no money, no power" by seeing real-life results from other donors on the app.

Corporate partners can give back to the community and allow their consumers to decide where to allocate their money.

Charities will be heard and will have an opportunity to promote their causes with low marketing budgets.

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