work
résumé
with Blueprint, Tech for Nonprofits
National Black Justice Coalition
National Black Justice Coalition, or NBJC, is a civil rights organization based in Washington, D.C., dedicated to empowering Black LGBTQ+/SGL people and ending racism, homophobia, and stigma, through federal public policy advocacy, coalition building, research, and education.
I designed a platform 0-1 to further NBJC’s community organization efforts, promote events, and otherwise be a general resource in the Black LGBTQ+ space.
Product Designer (Sole)
Sep 2020 - Jun 2021
User research, Product strategy, Visual Design, Interaction design, Usability testing
Figma
There was no existing platform or tech that was perfect to create what they envisioned in a new resource for communiity organization, participation, and to promote and continuously update a living record of Black, LGBTQ/SGL focused organizations.
So,
How might we make it easier for NPOs and their communities to build and organize effectively within the Black LGBTQ+ space?
USER RESEARCH
Establishing why needs were not met through existing solutions designed for NPOs
First was a competitive audit and analysis of other potential solutions on the market.
- Cannot easily discover and add new orgs
- Difficult, annoying to manually update and keep track of
- As database grows, hard to manage and effectively use information
- Not comprehensive LGBTQ+/SGL listings or database of organizations
- More effective for listing one-off events, not learning about an org and their activities
👥 Guidestar
- Is a “directory” of NPOs, but not community oriented
- Paywalled and not accessible to the masses and public
- Not an interactive, network type of platform
Figuring out user needs progressed to a logical understanding of features to tackle.
Determining user needs
- easily accessible to public and simple to navigate
- powerful moderation features
- room for growth and flexibility
MTP Feature Gameplan
- Organization registration
- Moderator and Admin
- Organization list and search
ANALYSIS AND SYNTHESIS
Distilling research and interview insights into user needs
Organizations
Wants to:
- Advertise and promote
- connect with other orgs and share resources
- reduce time spent on using platform
NBJC Staff
Want to:
- Easily moderate and select partner orgs
- Approve events
- Access settings for users
Public Users
Want to:
- Discover organization info and events
- View further organization details
Mapping out the intended user flows within each user solidified the scope of our goals and what steps or features would be essential in the MTP.
DESIGN, CRITIQUE, AND REPEAT
Designing core features for admins, partner orgs, and the public that will actually be used
All the above research insights, principles, and goals now guided the next steps.Working each feature through different stages, I identified strengths and weaknesses between design variations and converged towards “winning” choices that aligned with our design goals and principles.
NBJC Moderator + Admin Dashboard
After initial sketches, I began to flesh out and iterate on the low fidelity wireframes.
In mid fidelity, I focused on improving on these areas of readability, flexibility, and encouraging thoughtfulness:
FEATURE TWO - Iteration
Organization (Partner) Application Portal
FEATURE THREE - Iteration
Organization Profile Page
FEATURE FOUR - Iteration
Map, Search, and Events
FEATURE ONE
NBJC (Staff) Moderator Dashboard
What the User needs: Preserve information accessibility and density, but keep everything legible and highly agile in interaction.
Solution:
- see most important info quickly “at-a-glance”
- encourage thoughtful evaluation of organizations
- better, seamless reading experience for staff
FEATURE ONE AND A HALF
NBJC (Staff) Admin Dashboard
What the User needs: have fine-grained control over all areas of the tool in a simple interface without complexity while managing NBJC staff moderators
Solution:
- provide big-picture control over the platform as it scales
- ability to change org requirements and questions for admission as time passes, built for longevity
Organization Application & Dashboard
Solution:
- make sure NPOs know “where” they are in the process
- simple copy and flow reduces complexity and time spent
- flexibility in the form to accommodate a wide variety organization types and backgrounds
FEATURE THREE
Organization Profile (Edit & Public View)
What the User needs: Quickly set up profile and edit information without any extra hassle
Solution:
- guiding orgs w/ modals and helper text
- reduce unnecessary and confusing “in-between” screens
- ease of information accessibility / visibility
- prioritizing most essential info about orgs
Map, Search, Events
User needs: Easily discover and search for organizations, movements, and events to join.
Solution:
- tailor search results very granularly
- encourage exploration and discovery of new orgs or events
- focus on the main purpose of the site: search for or join
- Reorganizing and prioritizing last efforts + bugs
- Making and cleaning up handoff Figma
- Writing documentation of project and usage
- app to be linked as external site on NBJC.org website and promoted to NBJC affiliates
- potentially 10s-100s of thousands of visitors!
- Unfortunately, we handed off before NBJC’s team began full integration, so I don’t have access to launch or current usage stats
-
importance of frequent communication
- clarify expectations for all stakeholders
- design with end users in mind
- prioritize user and usability testing
- standardize design system earlier on in the process
- use more design thinking frameworks in early stages