DonationBuddy

ethically and efficiently donate your stuff

The Problem:

People donate many items at once to multiple organizations because they all take different items. It is not clear which organizations take which items or which are non-profits.

The Solution:

The DonationBuddy website helps people find donation-based organizations based on item categories and maps out the most efficient route for their items. It also provides a donation pickup service if the user doesn’t want to make the trip themselves.

Research

Journey mapping helped clearly articulate the user’s process and find pain points and key areas of difficulty in donating items.

Design

Wireframes

Business Model

I wanted to create a service that could be a self-sustaining business, so I made free and paid flows for the website. The user is able to access mapping features for free, but they also have the option of paying for a pickup, and can access the pickup/payment flow from any page.

Homepage

The homepage is extremely focused on getting relevant information from the user to help move them along in their process. I took inspiration from food delivery apps like Grubhub and Doordash in designing this page to avoid unnecessary distractions and promote desired outcomes

Initial Selections

The “select categories” button brings up an overlay with checkboxes and blurs unnecessary info without requiring the user to familiarize themselves with a whole new page.

Location Lists

From the homepage the user navigates to a list of donation locations near them. These are organized by chosen categories and distance from the user’s address. The “Request a Pickup” button is introduced for the first time on the locations page as well. Primary actions are denoted with a teal fill. These are the “map these” buttons for each category as well as a button to scroll to more options for each category.

Location Mapping

If the user clicks “map these” they are shown a page where locations are mapped based on the chosen category. They are arranged by distance to the user in a list and labeled by a number that corresponds to an icon on the map. Clicking an icon or an entry on the list brings up an overlay confirming the location/address chosen with a button to get directions on Google Maps.

Paid Flow

If the user selects “Request Pickup” at any point they are directed through this pay-for-pickup flow. The form fields are auto-populated with their choices from the home page, but they have the opportunity to edit them as well. The details for pickup are visible while the user is entering their contact and payment info, so they can double check their info even as they finalize their payment.