Supportly

Inspiration and Aim

While searching for volunteer opportunities relevant to our experience and interests, we realized it was hard to find suitable activities due to event details and announcements on separate platforms unique to the organisation. To go about this, we created Supportly, a centralised hub to connect nonprofit foundations to willing volunteers. Not only does this simplify communication and newsletters from organisations, but also allows volunteers to keep track of past and future activity.

In addition to that, our app supports volunteer employability through auto-generated LinkedIn posts and badges. To further incentivise volunteering, each Supportly user has their own 3D virtual "world", where achieving volunteer milestones unlocks landmarks and cosmetics.

The Process

In our brainstorming stage, we started by sketching out storyboards and detailing user flows. This allowed us to conceptualise our app and purpose, as well as build on ideas and converge our thinking. After summarising our findings and diagrams into a shared document, we were ready to design our app.

We used Figma to design our app, laying out a basic wireframe to set the scene. Once our key requirements were finalized, our designing process began as we decided on a theme. As everything came together we collaborated on refining the details and testing the user experience.

Challenges

Besides spending a bit too much time thinking of a name for our app, we contemplated how we would implement our "world" without overcomplicating it or overshadowing the main purpose of our app. We also had to put ourselves in the users shoes, analysing what they would interact with the most and how to enable them to use the app efficiently and naturally.

What we learned

Overall, we got to learn Figma in-depth through the creation of the app. We developed a sense of user experience flow and how to design for people in mind.