Volunteering your way
Researching, testing and iterating terminology
Travel With a Mission (TWAM) offered multiple ways to volunteer across two websites, making it difficult for travellers to see the full range of volunteering opportunities, and whether travel and accommodation is included.
The purpose of the hackathon was to design a single website where travellers can search, filter, compare and book TWAM’s diverse range of volunteering opportunities.
This example focuses on how I researched, tested and iterated the terminology for different ways to volunteer, within the effort, duration and budget contraints of the Tech4Impact hackathon.
The challenge
Clearly differentiate the three ways to volunteer, known on the existing websites as:
- Volunteering
- Volunteering platform
- Twaming
thereby increasing conversions from browsing to booking.
The process
Deep dive review of the TWAM websites to understand the main differentiators, which are:
- What is included in the volunteering project.
- How much support is offered by TWAM before and during the project.
- Who manages the organization of the project on site.
Devised content research questions to explore:
- Do participants understand the current terminology for the different options?
- If not, what words would they use to describe each one?
Recruited internal participants with an interest in volunteering, and conducted the content research.
Proposed a first iteration of terminology based on participant insights:
- Volunteering became All inclusive.
- Volunteering platform became Flexible.
- Twaming became Bulletin board.
Collaborated with the lead UX designer to incorporate the content into the mockups and prototype.
Collaborated with the lead UX researcher (UXR) to include content-specific tasks and questions in the user testing protocol. Assisted the UXR as notetaker during prototype testing (with a different set of test participants from the content research testing).
Feedback on the volunteering types
The new terminology was still confusing. Participants couldn’t accurately describe what was included in each option or who supports and manages them.
I renamed the volunteering types and updated their descriptions based on the prototype testing feedback, then asked the same test participants to review the changes.
The results
Added a paragraph below How to volunteer with TWAM, which mentions different levels of support and states travel is at your own cost.
First card:
- Changed All inclusive to TWAM because participants said they want to know it’s a reputable company they can trust.
- Added information about airport transfers, which was very important for participants and could be a deal breaker.
Second card:
- Changed Flexible to Partner, to indicate it was a trusted provider but not managed by TWAM.
- Explained more about being flexible because participants thought it applied only to the length of stay.
Third card:
- Changed Bulletin board to Peer-to-peer.
- Changed volunteer to lend a helping hand, to steer away from it being a big project.
All participants provided very positive feedback on the revised wording. One participant said ‘The unclear things are now crystal clear!’.
Created a terminology repository for all text labels in the new UI and handed it over for translation into other languages.
Development of the website is ongoing by TWAM.