Aspired
Gamification Elements That Increase Donations and Provide User Tracking
My Role
UX/UI Designer
Tools Used
Miro, Pen and Paper, Figma
Duration
4 Weeks
Overview
The start-up company Aspired aims to expand avenues for nonprofits to generate donations. Their platform acts as a bridge to help nonprofits boost donations from restaurants. When a customer orders food through Aspired, a portion of that sale gets donated to a nonprofit at no additional cost to the customer.
However, the company noticed a lack of motivation in users to use Aspired, but they do not know why. Additionally, they want to provide their users with the ability to track the donations that they contribute to. Over four weeks, I worked with two other UX/UI designers to improve the current user flow and add new elements to the website to help increase motivation to donate while providing donation tracking options.
Problem
There were two problems Aspired asked us to help alleviate.
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Lack of motivation in users to use Aspired.
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Users could not track their donations.
Solution
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Updating the mobile website to alleviate the current friction points deterring users from using Aspired.
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Integrate gamification elements into the user flow to increase motivation in using the mobile website while also providing tracking capabilities.
User Base | Tamia
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30-year-old
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Located in the San Francisco Bay Area
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Currently donating to nonprofits
Research
To better understand the magnitude of problems users were experiencing with the Aspired mobile website, we conducted primary and secondary research. I assisted with user testing primary research and coordinated the secondary research.
Primary Research
The primary research consisted of user testing and user interviews.
User Interviews
To better understand pain points currently within the industry, primary research began with user interviews:
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Users forget to donate through 3rd party platforms.
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Users want to contribute to organizations that resonate with them.
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There is distrust about how donations are given and spent.
User Testing
I assisted with user testing to pinpoint the current friction points in the Aspired user flow. The most problematic friction points were:
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There is no search bar or filters to find specific food.
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Users don’t know the mission of the charity they are donating to.
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How the app switched between the food and donation aspects was confusing.
Additionally, I noticed there was no clear way to create an account with Aspired, which contributes to the problem of users not being able to track their donations.
Secondary Research
To further understand users’ motives, I researched what influences users to contribute to cash donations, industry standards for tracking donations, and conducted a competitive analysis.
Trust
Characteristics of beneficiaries
Reward
“Conclusively, we identified 8 external factors that motivate individual money donation: Trust, Reward, Leadership influences, Characteristics of the organization, Environmental influences, Personal benefits, Characteristics of beneficiaries, and Future Interests.”
Degasperi, N. C., & Mainardes, E. W. (2017, December). What motivates money donation? A study on external motivators. Revista de Administração (São Paulo). Retrieved April 20, 2022, from https://www.scielo.br/j/rausp/a/Mpr7Ly6ybHwMWWnqDcJcpyx/abstract/?lang=en
Cost Per Dollar Raised
Provided Receipts
There are 26 essential key performance indicators to track donations. The two indicators that the target users can utilize are:
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Cost Per Dollar Raised (CPDR)
Provided Receipts
Tedesco, B., 2022. Nonprofit Fundraising Metrics: 26 Essential KPIs to Track | DonorSearch. [online] DonorSearch. Available at: <https://www.donorsearch.net/resources/nonprofit-fundraising-metrics/> [Accessed 20 April 2022].
Competitive Analysis
Lastly, I reviewed the platforms of ItsDeductible and GoFundMe to see how they were presenting tracking information to their users.
Incentive tracking, such as an estimated savings amount for taxes.
The dollar amount donated is shown by day.
They clearly state the nonprofit name.
Key Findings
With an affinity map to group commonalities of the data together, the research revealed that the friction points in the current user flow created the most critical problems. However, to achieve the goal of increasing motivation in users while providing donation tracking, the integration of gamification is the best solution in addition to updating the user flow. Not only will gamification elements help increase users’ motivation through rewards, but it is a great way to integrate tracking elements in a way that is easy for users to understand.
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​Additional problems to correct in the future not focused on during this round of updates are:
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Reminding users to use a 3rd party website for donating through website notifications.
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Increasing trust in how money is being donated by integrating blockchain technology.
User Flow
To update the app and integrate features that users would resonate with, we brainstormed how a typical interaction would occur and the types of information a user would need to complete their goal. Next, I brainstormed gamification elements that would reward users and increase motivation to use Aspired while also providing them with tracking stats.
Red Route
By thinking like a user of Aspired, our brainstorming session assisted us in updating the current purchase red route, creating an onboarding red route, and the gamification red route of which I was the lead designer.
Checking Gamification Stats Red Route
Design
Low Fidelity Wireframe
We started with creating wireframes for the new red routes and updated the original red route. The purpose of the wireframes was to create a visual aid to help us explain the direction our research was pushing us to Aspired. Due to time constraints, after the client approved the wireframes, we started to design the high fidelity prototype and decided to conduct user testing afterward.
Checking Gamification Stats Low Fidelity Design
Brand Font
Source Sans Pro
Style Guide
As I looked over the current Aspired website, I noticed inconsistencies in brand colors and accessibility issues. I created a style guide to help my team stay consistent and help Aspired move forward with brand consistency.
Brand Colors
#DE7A07
#292005
#008036
#FFF1E4
Font Sizing and Weight
H1.........................31pt | Regular
H2.........................25 pt | Semi-bold
H3.........................20 pt | Bold
Body......................16 pt | Regular
Small Body..........10 pt | Regular
High Fidelity Design
I used Figma to create the high fidelity designs of the gamification red route for the mobile website and four screens of the desktop website to help explain to Aspired how the desktop and mobile website will differ in layout. There are three main gamification elements: a goal tracker, badges, and a leaderboard.
Goal Tracker
Continuously entices users as they are browsing the app to fulfill their goals.
Badges
Rewards users for achieving goals to help increase user motivation to donate more.
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Leaderboard
Promotes friendly competition on top of the enhanced motivation that gamification presents.
Checking Gamification Stats High Fidelity Design - Mobile Website
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Checking Gamification Stats High Fidelity Design - Desktop Website
Remote Usability Testing
The remote user testing had two goals: to evaluate if the original friction points found in the user testing research phase were alleviated and to observe users’ reactions to the gamification elements. The tests confirmed the alleviation of the original friction points and the excitement about the ability to win badges and compete against other donators for the top spot on the leaderboard.
However, problems did arise during user testing, and updates to the final design occurred. For the gamification user flow:
Users were interested in learning more about the type of badges they won.
Before
I created a modal that expands when the user clicks the badge that explains the purpose of the badge.
After
Users looked for a link that said “Leaderboard” instead of going to the profile page.
I updated the navigation page to include a “Leaderboard” link.
Before
After
Interactive Prototype
Conclusion
The integration of gamification elements that can track donations has generated excitement in the Aspired users which will translate into increased motivation to use the app. However, once this update occurs, Aspired will need to track the repeat of user purchases to confirm the gamification elements corrected their problems.
Future updates based on discoveries found during my secondary research might include website notifications to further help remind users to utilize the Aspired website and blockchain technology to increase trust with users. I believe these should be the focus of the next phase of Aspired’s updates.