Activate App
Role
UX Researcher and Designer
Timeline
Jan 28-30, 2022
Services
Research, Prototyping, Visual Design, Product Strategy
Challenge
UCIrvine hosted a designathon with the following prompt: design your own desktop or mobile application that advocates for either (1) social justice or (2) sustainability. Activate is a mobile application designed to centralize all of the social justice events in one's community.
Revolutionizing how individuals can get involved in their community.
Top 8
finalist in nation-wide competition.
100%
approval and excitement from judges and industry leaders.
CONTEXT
Hypothesis: Social justice event information was inaccessible
As native Houstonians and college students, my co-designer and I were determined to take inspiration straight from our lives. We decided to take the social justice route since it was often overshadowed by sustainability in the tech world. We noticed that when a social justice event interests us, we often lose its advertisement in the hundreds of emails or messages we receive in a day.
Social justice event information is not streamlined enough, letting important community work slip through the cracks.
RESEARCH METHODOLOGIES
Rapid user research uncovered a real user need
Within our limited time frame, we sent out a poll to our dorm to understand accessibility of social justice events. We also conducted a user interview with 2 close friends interested in getting involved.
69% of people surveyed found it difficult to find social justice events in their area.
"I want to get involved, but I really have no idea where to look or start."
"There are so many messages all the time - I never know which to choose, so I end up choosing none."
PROBLEM BREAKDOWN
Activate needs to connect users with their community
Our research gave us the information to be able to define the following key functions:
ONBOARD
Users complete an onboarding experience that feels intentional.
LONGEVITY
Users can establish long-term connections with their preferred organizations.
BROWSE
Users can find social justice events near them.
REMEMBER
Users can register for and track their upcoming events.
PROTOTYPING
Rapid wireframing and prototyping within time constraints
We knew that our application needed to be simple and intuitive in order to not over-complicate an already frustrating process of staying connected.
SOLUTION: TOP 8 FINALIST
Activate: Getting Involved Made Easier
A key experience in Activate is the onboarding flow. This flow helps users identify which social justice events they may find interest in, and the app can customize a feed just for them!
In Activate, users can browse through events, register for them, follow organizations they love, and view everything in their Registered and Following tabs.
OVERVIEW
TLDR: Designing under pressure and coming out a finalist!
This design competition was extremely rewarding. My ability to design and iterate rapidly was challenged, and it paid off in the end with a Top-8 award.
Revolutionizing how individuals can get involved in their community.
Top 8
finalist in nation-wide competition.
100%
approval and excitement from judges and industry leaders.
REFLECTION
My parting thoughts
In just 3-days, I learned a lot and I’m certainly proud of our Top-8 position and well-liked app. Here's some of what I learned:
Design with passion. I really enjoyed this experience of designing with empathy for users for a cause that I am interested in and passionate about. It was immensely rewarding to see the potential impact our app holds.
Communicate. Working with a co-designer on this project was certainly helpful during the short time frame. We prioritized communication and coordination of sprints and splitting up work.
Inspire each other. Fleshing out an entire app design in a few days is not easy. Having a teammate meant taking advantage of another set of eyes, another inspirational brain, and another set of design skills.
Presentation is key. We may not have placed so high if it weren't for our presentation skills. Knowing how to design is just one part of it; we knew we had to sell our idea, work, and passion to help others appreciate Activate.