CODESIGNING A VIRTUAL VOLUNTEERING PROGRAM

Devising a new strategy and digital prototype for a virtual volunteering platform aimed at enhancing and sustaining corporate sponsor employee engagement

Client
Nationwide Children’s Hospital

Company/Partner(s)
Stratos Innovation Group

Approach
Exploratory/Generative Design Research, Evaluative Research (User Testing)

Methods/Tools
Secondary Research/Trend Analysis, SME Interviews, CoDesign and Strategy Workshops with Projective Tools and Frameworks

OBJECTIVE

Explore the potential of, and create a strategy for, what a virtual volunteering program could look like at the hospital. The aim, through this volunteering experience would be to enhance, and better sustain, corporate partner employee engagement around the country.

OUTCOME

We created a digital prototype and service blueprint used in internal leadership meetings to explain the virtual volunteering program concept. The blueprint and prototype provided a vision for the ideal front-end experience, along with service and technical design requirements needed to execute and sustain the program.

The new virtual volunteering program was intentionally designed to be a win-win for NCH and their corporate partners. The prototype and blueprint showcased key offerings which included:

• Personalization (like Netflix, the more a user engaged, the more it understood their volunteering preferences and could suggest opportunities that aligned with their abilities and their interests)

• Gamification and friendly competition (e.g. health/wellness incentives and team building opportunities for employees) used to motivate and sustain on-going volunteer engagement

• Access to communities of volunteers around the country to broaden outreach and impact, and encouraging accountability

PROCESS

As lead design researcher my role was to:

• Conduct subject matter expert (SME) interviews

• Co-facilitate design workshops

• Conduct user tests of the digital prototype

• Develop a service blueprint of the virtual volunteer experience

Secondary research and SME interviews provided early insight into trends and the needs of corporate partner employees, which were used to develop projective toolkits (idea stimuli and direction) for co-design workshops. Internal teams at NCH (marketing, development, and digital/IT) and corporate partner employees were invited to participate in co-design workshops to help us define the ideal virtual volunteering experience (digital and physical) and converge around a program that could be implemented, short-term.

Insights from the workshops were used to inform the design of a digital prototype, designed in collaboration with a local digital design company. I served as an advocate of the user and the client, translating their needs to the designer, and working with the designer to iterate the concept as we tested the prototype with internal teams and corporate employees.