The Competitive Landscape
To design the most compelling product, we studied not just in-category competitors but pulled from entire unrelated applications as well. Great design patterns are present throughout and casting this wide net was crucial in yielding the strongest insights.
We began with applications that provided micro-volunteering opportunities. Micro-volunteering is far from ubiquitous, and the lack of competitors confirmed this. The few applications that provided these opportunities often only supported one form of participation (often through fundraising or spreading awareness). The few applications applications that did present unique ways to volunteer only allowed to do so for a single organization.
Voluntopia was wholly unique in that it was a volunteer directory, sourced from numerous third-party organizations, that supports many ways to participate, allowing users to take photos to document wheelchair-accessible locations, volunteer for afterschool tutoring programs and anything in between.
We documented our analysis on a spreadsheet where we could quickly compare competitors to form insights. We summarized the major takeaways from each competitor in the slider below.
With these best—and worst—design practices thoroughly examined, we created our design principles; foundational standards that every following design decision would strive to meet.