Month: February 2017

GiveGab

basic Information:

•  GiveGab is a social volunteering platform, website and app. It offers:
  1. Volunteer opportunities
  2. Campaigns
  3. Non-profit crowdfunding

 

https://www.givegab.com

 

This is a similar service to what I aim to create. Therefore I am using this closely as inspiration for content, and what issues I can find within the service that I can solve in my own work. One ‘issue’ with this service is that it is American based, meaning there is a gap in this market for my product.

 

Interesting Aspects:

1. Product Features

The features of GiveGab is arguably more developed and offers more to the individual that ‘Razoo’ (refer to previous research). This is because GiveGab offers crowdfunding to non-profits along with volunteering. These are two main elements to my current idea. Therefore this solidifies my idea to collaborate these two aspects of contribution to a community for the project.

 

Considerations:

After this piece of research, I still feel as though my project could offer more to the ideas of ‘active citizenship’ by adding more elements that can benefit a community.

From researching into GiveGab I think there needs to be a higher place of important around a friendly user interface home page in comparison to GiveGabs. This could include the design and aesthetics including the icons used and house style used.

https://www.razoo.com

Basic Information

• Razoo is a crowdfunding website for non-profit organisations.
• Since 2006 Razoo has raised over 500$ million

 

 

 

Interesting Aspects:

1.Aesthetic / Design

The use of simple icons to illustrate the website and make the information more interesting is an effective method in increasing the levels of interactivity.

2.  Features

 

3. Ability for users to set up projects.

This is an aspect of my own idea that I wanted incorporating into the product. Therefore, this is reassuring to see it be successful in a real organisation.

 

Considerations:

1. Some assets on the website don’t fit correctly

From this I will make sure to test the project thoroughly before submission to ensure assets are suitable for the product.

 

2. Razoo profits from user donations

There is no context to where the money that Razoo so a full conclusion can’t be made. Optimistically it could be assumed that it just used in order to maintain the website itself. However, I don’t necessarily agree with this to source funding for the product itself.

Taking the numbers from the website, where Razoo states its raised 500$ million since 2006.  Take the lowest number stated on the website that it takes 4% from users donations to charities. We can then calculate 4% of 500$ million which is 20$ million. This is a huge profit margin for the website and the maintenance cost of a website over 11 years would not equate to that much.

 

Therefore, I will have to make considerations into the funding of my project itself. One idea I currently have is to have an open donation section for the app itself to ensure its running where users can donate to keep the project maintained. I feel like morally this is a better option to take when regarding non-profits.

I have developed a simple idea for the navigation of the app that I think currently is the most user friendly option. The pictures below show my idea in a basic form. The idea behind them is that the bottom three circles are ‘pages’ that the user can swipe through to quickly access different parts of the app as soon as they open it. The darker colour circle indicates to the user which one they have selected. They would then press the grey box located about the circles to continue to that side of the app.

 

Here is the link to the wireframe that I created:

https://wireframe.cc/yj3qrL

 

 

Pages that I need to design in order to have a fully designed app concept:

 

Basic

1. Welcome page/ login page
2. 4 pages that are interlinked that separate the different parts of the app e.g. volunteering and crowdfunding
3. Checkout page/ basket
4. Personal profile
5. Calendar
6. A form of navigation that allows the user to switch between one side of the app and another – take inspiration from perhaps the menu seen on spotify?

Crowdfunding 

1. Search page
2. Categorisation
3. Individual organisation pages

Volunteering

1. Search page
2. Categorisation
3. Individual organisation pages
4. Volunteering page// how to contact the organisation page directly to volunteer
5. Reward page for volunteering

Council communication 

1. Search page
2.  Select council
3. About page for council
4. Page to show communication of user to council

 

Education program 

1. Search page
2. Selection page
3. Individual page to show information about the education program

Revised specifics of Contribute:

• A service/ app
• Allows users to donate/ crowdfund non-profit organisations and their projects
• Allow users to sign up and volunteer to local non-profits and events
• Allow verified users to set up their own organisations, projects and events
• Create a forum that allows communication between citizen and local council
• Free education program – could be used by homeless people

 

Problems that validate my idea as a form of a resolution:

• There isn’t an environment that allows the growth of active citizenship through contribution to a community
• There’s a need for a more easy form of communication between citizen and local council