Big Brothers Big Sisters of America
Team: Chime Dolker, Eve Elie, Jessie Kronke, Paul Simmons
Time: 4 days
Big Brothers Big Sister is the nation’s largest volunteer-supported mentoring network, they make meaningful, monitored matches between adult volunteers ("Bigs") and children ("Littles"), ages 5 through young adulthood in communities across the country.
I participated in a 4-day Hackathon where our task was to select a social cause that we care about and design a mobile or desktop experience that addresses an aspect of that issue.
Responsibilities
UX Designer & Strategist
Business Research
Market Research
User Research
Usability testing
Design iterations & prototyping
Business Research
What are the organizational goals?
Mission
Vision
Create and support one-to-one mentoring relationships that ignite the power and promise of youth.
All youth achieve their full potential.
Market Research
What areas of the program needs the most improvement?
Big Brothers Big Sisters’ 5 year Strategic Plan outlines the goal of increasing the number of youth paired with a mentor
-BBBS Bigger Impact 2022
Feature Inventory l Competitive + Comparative Analysis
What do our competitors and comparators offer?
The biggest competitor is Idealist, a platform for connecting users to volunteer opportunities.
The main competitor is The Posse Foundation which is a non-profit focusing on leadership training.
Gives users the ability to filter volunteer opportunities based time and distance so that they have a clear sense of what they are committing to before signing up for.
Gives users access to fewer features before signing up but do provide them with a directory of other volunteers once accepted into the program.
User Research l Survey Insights
How do our users feel?
“I think children are our future, and would be open to mentorship if there was more outreach.”
“I feel I need some guidance before I can mentor someone.”
of users feel comfortable having conversations around school life, avoiding risky behavior, and social/emotional learning.
User Persona
Who is our primary user?
Problem Statements
Eric needs to know what it takes to be a mentor so that he feels prepared for the challenges of mentorship and in turn, confident in the positive impact he can have on a child’s life.
What challenges does our user have?
How might we?
How can we reframe our challenges into problem solving questions?
How might we increase awareness of youth mentorship programs?
How might we be transparent about the type of support that is expected from our mentors?
How might we ensure that our mentors feel supported (emotionally, financially, etc.) becoming a mentor?
How might we assure potential mentors that they are good role models for the youth?
User Flow l Build Confidence Using a Checklist
What will be the flow of steps users will take with our first new feature?
User Flow l Talk To An Experienced Big
What will be the flow of steps users will take with our second new feature?
Wireframes l Design iterations
What key updates did we make to the original “Get Involved” page on the Big Brother Big Sisters website?
Short and unclear idea of what being a volunteer involves.
Sign-up with no prior information about what being a volunteer involves.
Before
Step-by-step sign-up overview
Clear and informational introduction about what being a big entails
Checklist of what is expected of bigs with info icons that showcase hover over text boxes with more details.
Directory of other bigs that users can reach out to to feel even more prepared before signing up.
Next Steps
What recommendations do we have if our design process is continued?
