Project Overview
The problem
24th of February started the invasion of Russia to Ukraine. Military conflict brings massive humanitarian issues to Ukraine.
The Russian attacks are horrific atrocities and have caused immense suffering, fear, and heartbreak.
Ukrainian citizens immediately began to receive help from people around the world. Many people outside Ukraine are looking the way that they could help: donations, clothes, equipment, medicine supply, food, etc. Other people are ready to help with the physical volunteer work.
There are two main problems between those two groups: many scams with the donating sources, and people who want to help with the volunteering or donating outside of Ukraine don't know where is the closest hub, how they work, what kind of help that they need.
Ukraine: where are refugees fleeing to
The goal
A multilingual non-profit platform working worldwide that collects all available volunteer hubs in a specific area provides essential information about organizations, hours, and needs to the user. This platform also offers trustworthy sources and organizations for secure cash donations, clothes, equipment, etc., and transfers it directly to Ukraine, and Europe countries with transparent monitoring.
My role
UX designer leading the responsive website platform design from conception to delivery
Project duration
March 2022 to April 2022
Tools used
Responsibilities
Conducting interviews, paper and digital wireframing, low and high-fidelity prototyping, conducting usability studies, accounting for accessibility, iterating on designs, determining information architecture, and responsive design.
User journey map
I made a visual representation of the user's journey across all touchpoints of our platform to understand where it's possible to improve the user experience.
Ideation
Information Architecture
IA Map of the final product helps organize the pages' hierarchy, content, features, ultimate user experience, and interaction with the website.
Starting the design
Paper wireframes
Paper wireframes sketched represent the skeleton of the interface
Usability study findings
To prepare for testing, I created a low-fidelity prototype available for view here. I used this prototype to conduct an unmoderated usability study with 5 participants. Here are the main findings uncovered by the usability study:
1. The size of the images
People like big and quality images that can give the message faster.
2. Search the hub
Users had difficulty searching only by the zip/city with no customizing options for the search.
3. Select an ammount
Some users found the selection amount function complicated and messy.
Refining the design
Mockups
High-fidelity prototype
The high-fidelity prototype included the design changes made after the usability study.
Responsive Design
With the app designs completed, I started work on designing the responsive website. The designs for screen size variation included mobile, tablet, and desktop. I optimized the designs to fit the specific user needs of each device and screen size.
Design System
Going forward
Takeaways
Impact
Users shared that the platform made the task that they are looking to make easier and more concentrated organization and their search.
The peer's feedback was that "Help Ukraine Today helps a lot of people to make their small that they can do for the people in trouble in Ukraine and maybe in other countries and conflicts in future."
What I learned
It was very exciting to me and I decide to make the research from the inside and visit a couple of times one of the volunteering hubs in NY for a better understanding of how they work, and how they receive tons of humanitarian help every day, sorting, package again and send it to Ukraine.
I learned that even though the mission was short in time and huge to complete, understanding the process from inside, diligently going through each step of the design process, and aligning with specific user needs to be helped me come up with solutions that were both feasible and useful.
Next steps
2. Features
1. Research
3. Spread
Conduct research on how successful the platform is in finding volunteer organizations and donations.
Conduct research on how successful the platform is in finding volunteer organizations and donations.
Contact and work with organizations outside the US to learn more about their needs.