THE LAND CONSERVANCY OF SAN LUIS OBISPO • UX CASE STUDY

A volunteer management system for logging and rewarding volunteer contributions.

This volunteer management system aims to remove that logistical burden while incentivizing volunteer work through progress tracking and a reward system. As a team of 8, we spent 10 weeks ideating, researching, designing, developing and testing this full-stack project through Hack4Impact Cal Poly, a student-run organization that develops software projects for local nonprofits. 

TEAM

Jonathon Banh, Marissa Darnell, Hannah Chan, Sam Wathen, Ritvik Durgempudi, Noah Yuen, Bora Joo, Ben McMann

TIMELINE

10 weeks

TOOLS

Figma, Lucidchart​​​​​​​, Notion

ROLE

UI/UX Designer

01 • INITIAL EXPLORATION AND DISCOVERY

What is The Land Conservancy?

The Land Conservancy of SLO works with landowners and government to care for the diverse wildlands and critical habitats of the Central Coast through conservation, restoration, and stewardship, all while connecting people to the land and one another.

Problems with the Current Solution

Managing volunteer information and hourly contributions has been a logistical burden faced by The Land Conservancy that has limited the amount of volunteer support they are able to utilize in their mission to connect people to the land. The organization currently utilizes email and physical sign-in sheets (from volunteer events) to collect volunteer data, and an Excel spreadsheet to log and track volunteer data.

02 • USER RESEARCH

We interviewed 12 potential users to learn about their thoughts on the current volunteer management workflow and what they would be looking for in an application. Amongst our interview pool were The Land Conservancy staff and volunteer coordinators, as well as current volunteers.

03 • SYNTHESIZING RESEARCH

I organized our collected data points into an affinity map and found 3 main insights

Efficiency

The current process of using email and excel spreadsheets requires a lot of back-and-forth communication and is tedious.

Organization

Volunteer coordinators need a better way to track volunteer data and to report monthly total volunteer hours to the state in order to receive funding

Motivation

Volunteers don’t feel incentivized to log their hours consistently

The Problem

The Land Conservancy of SLO is looking for a volunteer management platform that allows for volunteers to track/log their hours and for admins to organize/access volunteer data. The organization needs a platform that simplifies the process of collecting and recording volunteer activity, and aids the organization in reporting the total amount of hours volunteered each month so they can get funding from the state. The organization also struggles with incentivizing volunteers to log their hours.

The Solution

A volunteer management system that allows for volunteer coordinators to record, track, and report volunteer activity, while incentivizing volunteers to log their hours through progress tracking and a reward system. The application will be inclusive and user-friendly, as volunteers range from high-schoolers to the elderly.​​​​​​​

PERSONA

I then created personas to guide my design process and identify task flows we wanted to solve through the application.

04 • MAKING DECISIONS

From our research findings, we came up with four key features

  1. Individual user accounts

  2. Track/log hours within user profile

  3. Automated system to export data

  4. Progress bar progression

05 • DESIGNING

After deciding on the MVPs and desirables of the app, I created a process flow to map out expected user interactions with the app and started preliminary sketches of screen layouts

A snapshot of mid fidelity

06 • OUR FINAL PRODUCT

Volunteer

Admin