Be There website
Community Food Club
Making it easy for volunteers to show up and do good
At a glance
Redesigned the volunteer shift sign-up process for the Community Food Club, replacing the clunky Sign-Up Genius experience with a streamlined scheduling website. Conducted user interviews, created personas, and iterated designs in Figma. Usability testing led to clearer date labels, improved shift filters, and accessibility updates. The final design simplified scheduling, cancellation, and navigation, making volunteering more accessible and enjoyable.
The problem
Signing up for volunteer shifts at a local non-profit, the Community Food Club, involves using the website Sign-Up Genuis. Volunteers find the process challenging and clunky causing unnecessary barriers for people aiming to help others.
Potential solution
A streamlined website that allows volunteers to schedule, view, and cancel shifts easily will simplify the sign-up process and improve overall volunteer experience.
Tools used
Figma
FigJam
Zoom
Drive
Project duration
weeks
10
screens
20+
User research
To better understand users current experience with the shift sign up process, I conducted user research with 10 current volunteers. Below are the questions I asked each interviewee.
Could you walk me through your process for signing up for shifts at the Community Food Club?
Overall, can you describe your experience with this process?
Have you volunteered for other organizations that have you sign up for shifts? If so, how do those experiences compare to this one?
Have you ever had to cancel a shift at the Community Food Club? If so, can you describe your experience?
How do you feel the sign up process impacts your overall volunteering experience, if at all?
What we found:
Volunteers find the current sign-up website frustrating, complicated, and clunky.
Navigating through all the available shifts makes it difficult for vo.lunteers to find the ones they are interested in.
Most volunteers don't mind the current email option for canceling shifts, but volunteers under 40 expressed wanting an option to cancel online
Understanding users better
Ideal persona
Many of the volunteers that I interviewed from the Community Food Club were retirees, so I created the Retired Rita persona. Using this persona helped guide the design to meet users needs while reducing frustrations.
Age: 68
Tech: Limited technology skills
Goals
Easily sign up for volunteer shifts
Add shifts to her Google calendar
Send invites to other friends who want a place to volunteer
Frustrations
Phone apps with no website
Websites with challenging navigation
Losing progress when she clicks the wrong thing by accident
User flow
In FigJam I designed a potential user flow indicating how people might navigate through the website to schedule a volunteer shift.
Prototypes
This project included many design iterations eventually leading to it's current state below.
Testing and Implementation
To confirm that the new design improved user experience, I conducted in-person and virtual user testing with 5 volunteers and 5 non-volunteers. I asked interviewees to complete one main task, signing up for a volunteer shift, while I watched them interact with the interface.
Recommendation 1
When selecting shifts, it was hard to understand the date of the shift because there was no clear label distinguishing the dates.
Solution: I updated the layout so shifts on the same date stayed in alignment rather than being strictly chronological.
Recommendation 2
The shift scheduling page confused users because it was unclear that different shif.t types were on the main page.
Solution: I updated the filter options to create a better visual hierarchy. I made shift type the most prominent option and put other time based filters on the side
Recommendation 3
Non-volunteer testers wanted to know the physical requirements for each shift type to pick the best option for their ability.
Solution: I updated the description of the Stocking shift to include weight lifting requirements.
Recommendation 4
Users found it hard to differentiate the blue and purple originally used to distinguish shift types.
Solution: I changed the blue to green for more contrast.
Key takeaway
This project reminded me that good design is iterative. I continually revisited the original user interviews to make sure I was meeting real user needs. By staying focused on the challenges volunteers face with shift scheduling, I was able to design a user experience that truly works for them.