I was given a prompt to create an internal dashboard for a local nonprofit. The prompt requested that I create a responsive website that assists nonprofit employees and volunteers in accessing relevant data. The nonprofit of my choice was a local animal shelter, Animal Rescue League of Boston.

Overview:

Sole designer responsible for end-to-end creation. Ranging from desk research to wireframing

Responsibilities:

Timeline:

80 hours

Project type:

Designlab case study.

The problem: employees and volunteers need a straightforward, user-friendly way to access information to help them make data-driven decisions.

After performing some desk research, I discovered some glaring issues that non-profits often encounter when trying to navigate dashboard systems. Only 5 percent of nonprofits indicated that their software was extremely user-friendly.

In order to produce the best possible product for ARL, I began with desk research to gather information about dashboard design, as well as data that non-profits (specifically animal shelters) want to access.

I also did a competitive analysis with some popular dashboard tools, to gather information about what users liked or disliked about them.

I then conducted surveys in order to quickly collect as much qualitative and quantitative data as possible within my time constraints.

Research Methods

From the surveys, I discovered a few key insights:

  • Most users were not familiar or beginners with a dashboard tool

  • Most users want the data presented to them in the simplest way possible. 

  • Most users want insights presented to them alongside the data. 

  • Most participants were female and between the ages of 25-34.

Key Insights

Non-profits, and especially animal shelters mainly want to track data regarding their donations, volunteers, and animals. Valuable data includes but is not limited to the following:

  • Average length of stay for animals

  • Save rate for the animals

  • Volunteer data such as intake, event attendance, type of volunteer

  • Donor data such as donation amounts, donor retention rate, donor information (name, etc)

Based on my research, I created two personas to condense the main user needs and pain points.

Personas

Viv represents users who want to easily access a number of different types of data, but who may have impairments that require the dashboard to be accessible.

Kaitlin represents users who may not be familiar with utilizing dashboards and require the system to be user-friendly for beginners.

With the problems presented for my personas, I came up with some “How Might We” questions to guide me through the design process.

How Might We?

“How might we make relevant information regarding donations, volunteers, and shelter animals easier to access?”
“How might we create a dashboard that is intuitive and easy to use?”

Now with my problems and HMW questions clearly defined, I began my next steps by mapping out the structure of my dashboard as well as creating some task flows.

Information Architecture

With my sitemap and task flows created, I went right into building mid-fidelity wireframes. I skipped sketching due to time constraints and wanted to get right into visualizing my dashboard. I also created a style tile with the themes of ARL’s website in order to design with in a system that was already created.

Wireframes

Next, I created prototypes using the Figma Prototype Tool and began remote moderated usability tests. Participants were 4 individuals ages 22-27, and were asked to complete three task flows. Success metrics were completion of task, reported ease of task (on a scale from 1-5), and # of errors.

Below is an example of Task Flow 2, where users were asked to find the orientation status of a specific volunteer, Felicity Kelcey.

Usability Testing

Due to the simple nature of my task flows, I found that not many of my participants struggled through them, and 100% of them were able to complete the task with little to no errors. However, I was given some helpful suggestions from participants in regards to design, and made some priority revisions based on these suggestions.

Key Findings

Iterations

This project was very pivotal for me in terms of branching out and learning to design something new, and taught me a lot about dashboards and data visualization.

If I had more time and opportunity, I would like to go deeper with regards to the meaning of the dashboard data. For example, understanding the process of an employee utilizing the data to take actionable steps in making data-driven decisions for the shelter.

Next Steps & Conclusion