GoFarm Non-Profit Redesign

Redesign for the non-profit GoFarm, a food subscription service that provides patrons with fresh, organic, and locally grown produce.

Problem

Users struggle to understand what a food share is, how it works, and the impact their subscription and potential donation has.

Solution

Improved the visibility of mission, programs, donation impact and create an easier and more enjoyable food share checkout experience that increases people’s willingness to donate.

Type

Group Project

Tool(s)

Adobe XD, Miro

Timeframe

3 weeks

Role

UX Designer

Executive Summary

GoFarm is a non-profit dedicated to providing fresh and local produce at an affordable price. Our group worked  with their marketer to redesign their MVP: the food share subscription checkout process.

Our main goal was to make the food share checkout process feel intuitive, easy, and quick. Our second goal was to increase the number of donations within this checkout experience. We achieved these goals by re-designing their homepage, re-ordering checkout steps, lowering the donation amount bar, and increasing donation transparency.

Jump to Prototype
Introduction

This project began as a bootcamp design prompt: in a group, re-design a local non-profit website with their input and business insights. Our group choose GoFarm.

What is GoFarm?

A Colorado-based non-profit organization working to transform our local food system for the past 6 years. They sponsor beginning and established Colorado farmers, increase access to fresh food in under-resourced communities, and run a food share subscription service.

The Old Website

GoFarm has a responsive-ish website that centers around 3 main actions.

Food Share Subscription Service

Connecting the Community to Local Agriculture though a Multi-Farm Community Supported Agriculture (CSA) program.

Farmer Assistance

Helping Beginning Farmers Start Their Own Farm and Supporting Existing Local Farmers.

Donate Icon

Donate

Donating ensures GoFarm’s programs thrive and establish an environmentally sustainable, and equitable food system.

Problem
  • Difficulty understanding how a food share works
  • Abandonment when signing up for a food share
  • Lack of funding and donations during the Food Share Subscription process
How Might We...

Improve GoFarm’s food share checkout experience so first-time food share subscribers can quickly and easily purchase a food share and understand why they should donate?

Aligning on Goals

Before beginning any design work we met with the stakeholder (marketing manager and website monitor) via zoom with the goal of agreeing to a unified vision for the website and shared understanding of user needs.

01

User Needs

  • Understand what a food share is and how the subscription process works.
  • Quickly and easily sign up for a food share.

02

Business Needs

  • Wants to increase donations particularly in the food share checkout flow
  • Needs a more mobile friendly experience

03

Business Insights

  • Primary users of the site are shareholders or  people who subscribe to GoFarm's food share service.
Constraints & Scope

Our team only had 3-4 weeks to complete this redesign. Because of the time constraint, we decided to focus on redesigning GoFarm’s highest traffic pages and biggest MVP: the food share subscription process.

Qualitative Usability Testing Insights

To dig deeper into user needs, we conducted 7 guerrilla-style usability tests to get a feel for how people navigate the website, how they sign up for a food share, and the find-ability of key business information such as mission and programs.

Uncomfortable Donating

Users didn't understand the significant impact donations have on GoFarm's programs, outreach, and success.

What is GoFarm?

Huge Problem! 5/7 users struggled to quickly relay what GoFarm did, what a food share was and how it worked.

Difficulty Signing Up for a Food Share

3/7 users missed the CTA “sign up for food share” located on the hero image. The food share purchase process did not feel intuitive.

Educating Users on GoFarm

User’s path to food share subscription typically begins with the homepage. However, this page particularly on mobile was very content-heavy. This meant people skipped or missed key information on GoFarm’s mission, programs,  community value as well as the food share subscription button.

Solution
  • Re-design Homepage
  • Information Architecture: sticky “Get Food Share” and “Donate buttons,”  mission statement moved to above the fold.
  • Interaction Feature: swipe and spin feature that displays GoFarm’s 3 MVPs. This had two benefits: saved space, informative and created delight!
  • Reduce Copy: shortened GoFarm’s history and story to a few sentences + button to read more
My Role
  • Designing and prototyping a new interaction feature educating users on GoFarm’s main programs (Farmer Assistance and Food Share Subscription) and commitment to their community.
  • Group brainstorm and ideation: presented my wireframe sketches for homepage and new check out flow.
Making the Food Share Subscription Process Easy

During usability testing, we noticed the food share subscription process was cumbersome, awkward, and lengthy.

First, the login/create an account  "broke up" the subscription process. It was an unexpected, high effort task right before users were about to enter payment information at the end of an already lengthy subscription process.

Second,  we struggled with when should users be asked to donate. We conducted A/B testing to discover whether users preferred to donate before or after they select their payment option.

Solution #1
  • Re-ordered the checkout flow to feel more natural, intuitive and streamlined. Login/Create an Account step moved to the beginning.
Solution #2
  • Re-ordered the donation step within the food share purchase flow. 7/8 of our users preferred the donation step AFTER they had selected a payment plan.
My Role
  • Advocated for re-ordering the login/create an account step during design discussions
  • Conducted 2 A/B tests to determine when users should donate.
Increasing Donations While Purchasing a Food Share

GoFarm relies heavily on donations to maintain its services for farmers and subscribers. However, they have a hard time getting people to donate! During usability testing, we surmised this might be due to the fact people don't want to spend more money after an expensive food share purchase.

Solution
  • Increase transparency surrounding where your money is going and how it helps Go Farm. Included visuals and captions that depict where your money goes and how it helps.
  • Lower engagement bar for donations: introduced the  $1 recipe inclusion option
  • Increase opportunities to donate: “Round (Total) Up” box on the review purchase (final step) of subscription process
My Role
  • Sketched and built visual solutions for the different donation options
Original Donate Step
Iterations to Donate Step
Iterations to Review Purchase Step
Behind the Scenes: 4 minds, 1 prototype

Each team member played a part in designing the prototype.  Once each team member sketched their own wireframes depicting the food share checkout process and donation step, we met over Zoom and on Miro (simultaneously) to pick the strongest features and design decisions from each of our wireframes to create 1 clickable prototype (see below).

Step 01: Individual Ideation

My Homepage Scrolled Down

Starting the Food Share Purchase Process Highlights

Donate & Payment Options (within the food share flow)

Step 02: Group Collaboration & Brainstorm

Each sticky note color represents one group member's thoughts, likes, and suggestions.

Hi-Fidelity Prototype

Jane is a first time food share subscriber wanting to know more about GoFarm and buy a food share.

She scrolls down on the homepage to learn more about what GoFarm does.

As Jane continues to scroll, she comes across GoFarm's Programs. Swiping rotates the "wheel" revealing a different program's description.

Once Jane has selected her pickup location, she chooses her desired food share(s).

First, Jane selects veggie share and then selects the size or number of veggie items she would like to receive.

Lastly, she selects how often she would like to receive her food share.

Jane is ready to check out. She selects a payment option.

She is then asked if she would like to make a one-time donation.

She reviews her payment and is asked if she would like to round up her total as a small donation.

Try it Out! 

Reflection

One of my biggest revelations from this project was the power of collaboration! Creating a mobile prototype with four minds was (at times) challenging, however, the process of getting there was one I greatly enjoyed. Best of all, I feel we ended with a product that is not only a combination of our best ideas but something that improves a user's experience on GoFarm. They can understand GoFarm’s mission, better understand the impact a donation has on the company, and sign up for a food share with ease!