Background.

The Solve for Good Marketplace was a platform developed in 2016 and sat on the shelf untouched for years. Once COVID hit, the need for a remote program became a priority for a section of the Machine Learning Department with Carnegie Mellon University. They wished to quickly launch the associated product but did not have a sense for its usability.

At Carnegie Mellon University, I was charged with understanding the current state of the Solve for Good platform, determining its usability, and increasing it through UX Writing.

Method.

I interviewed internal stakeholders to understand the expected intent and purpose before moving on to potential user groups.

Among organizations, I learned the types of projects they hoped to place on the marketplace for volunteer work. Among volunteers, I learned their strengths, concerns, and the types of projects they wished to work on.

Organizations and Volunteer BETA testers were then set up with accounts, after which usability tests were run to understand immediate pain points.

Turnaround was incredibly quick. The highest priority items were reported to engineering staff and acted upon.

Impact.

Bugs and usability: Like I mentioned above, turnaround was fast for this team who was developing a program along side a product. The highest priority was sniffing out bugs first. Most of these were caught before moving to BETA, though they also helped catch a few. From users, we learned some pathways developed in the first phase of the product were not intuitive. These were altered to meet expectations.

UX Writing: While the application itself could have been improved from UX Writing, more user benefit was gained by creating a Product Manual.