Giving Aid: Concept, wireframes, design, copy, iconography, branding, style tile
For this project, my team reimagined and redesigned a website whose goal was to generate donations to Chicago-specific charities.
We started with competitive analysis, researching the design decisions that make sites like this successful. After presenting the client with our findings (use of emotional photography, compelling taglines, proof of success and credibility, etc.), we came up with three distinct concepts.
One member of the team created a ‘featured cause’ model, highlighting one particular social cause (homelessness, in our example) and the organizations addressing it each month. This concept also included an educational feature to draw users into the content. I wrote and designed the quiz section of this concept, sourcing my information from the Chicago Coalition for the Homeless website and other homelessness resources.
The second concept was a subscription model, where users would donate five dollars each month and trust Giving Aid to distribute that money where it would do the most good. I contributed to the concept and user testing of this idea.
My concept was a Kickstarter-style site, where local businesses would kick in matching funds if users reached a certain goal amount by a deadline. This, along with action-oriented, empowering copy, would give users a sense of urgency, encouraging them to participate now rather than putting it off and possibly forgetting to donate, and would promote Chicago businesses as well as Chicago charities.
Hovering over a campaign tile would invite users to learn more about it, and following that path would open a modal providing more information and leading to a donation page.
I created a logo emphasizing the ‘tipping point’ mechanism of the site while appealing to users’ sense of compassion and love for their fellow Chicagoans, and also provided a style tile with fonts and colors for the clients’ future use.
