Uncommon Good
Competitor and User Research to define product direction
Context
Uncommon Good is committed to helping cause-driven organizations amplify their message and raise more funds with easy-to-use fundraising solutions. They aim to do this by helping small non profits shift to online and digitally native solutions.
Duration: April 2020 - August 2020
Team:
Kim Ellsworth (me), UX Designer
Thu Do, UX Designer + Project Manager
JUICE Creative Group, Business + Product
Image credit to JUICE Creative Group.
Initial Assumptions + Hypotheses
From Uncommon Good to NPOs (B2B): Small NPOs need a low effort, large scale way to fundraise.
From Uncommon Good to Customers (B2C): Consumers are more likely to discover, donate, and share if there is an explicit or possibility of material benefit (i.e. a “prize”) to them.
Social Media is an untapped, determining factor for increasing a small to medium NPO’s reach, establishing credibility, and increasing conversion to donation rates.
The Process
Our task for the first Phase was to help identify the right direction to invest time and resources for an MVP launch in October 2020. To accomplish this we:
Conducted competitor research to determine the best product direction:
Option 1: Consumer facing, white label branding for Non-Profit Organizations (NPO)
Option 2: NPO facing toolset, such as a CRM/Social Media Management platform
Conducted interviews to better understand how and why people choose to donate to NPOs
Developed an understanding of the user needs and the product opportunity based on chosen direction
Competitor Research + Feature Analysis
In order to understand the competitive landscape, I researched existing products by conducting an assessment of the product experience and layout of each competitor.
In order to see the backend systems, I registered for new accounts and attended product demos. As a result, I was able to identify common features, evaluate the target audience (i.e. size of the NPO), and determine skill level required for our core competitors.
This research was intended to enable us to create an experience that is comparable, unique, and excels compared to our competitors.
Heuristic Analysis
After documenting the various features available, I evaluated each competitor using Jakob Nielsen's 10 Heuristic Principles. Here are examples of three out of the ten principles that were presented to the product team:
Visibility of System Status
User cares about making progress whether making a donation or setting up a donation campaign, which results in platforms providing clear breadcrumbs navigation with encouraging progress checker graphics.
System should be ‘on’ all the times, providing feedback and confirmation to every user’s action - most noticeable in loading icon and confirmation popups.
WATCHOUTS:
System status needs to be distinctive from each other. Competitive platforms run into similar and therefore confusing states (Inactive / Hover / Activated)
Aesthetic and minimalist design
Clean and clear design puts the focus on the actions and helps users digest the complex information on the page.
User Control and Freedom
Users must be able to undo an action.
Users must be able to skip an action.
Users must be able to edit content and inputs.
Clear hierarchy between different CTA tiers to help users focus on the key action the system want them to take.
Keep access to past content for context and ease of navigation.
WATCHOUTS:
Systems have ‘creative’ CTA placement which could be more inline with existing users’ existing mental models.
More actions on the page can create confusion and make users overwhelmed.
User Interviews
The purpose of these interviews were to understand the B2C consumer/user needs, painpoints, motivations, and goals as they relate to our platform direction. By conducting interviews, we gained empathy for their perspective and journey. After a collaborative affinity mapping session, we consolidated our interview data into themes and corresponding problem statements.
Recommendation
We gained a significant amount of data in a short period of time. We learned that small NPOs rely heavily on their personal networks and that most CRM tools cost too much time and effort for these understaffed and overworked organizations.
Our final recommendations to the product development team were to create a platform that:
has a simple/minimal style
requires low effort to learn
guides users through the flow
repetitive task templates to make them easier to learn, implement, and encourage repeat use
the ability to customize the platform for expert users
is cheaper, if not free, compared to the other larger CRM platforms
