Project Overview
The CAF American Donor Fund (CADF) is designed specifically for individuals paying tax in the United States and the United Kingdom looking for a smart, tax-effective way to achieve greater impact with their philanthropy. The fund allows customers to make donations to charities worldwide and receive tax relief in the UK and US. Over £57 million was given to charities through CAF American Donor Fund in 2016/17. We also needed to reach more clients, particularly in the USA, if we were to grow.
Previously, CADF customers had no visibility of their accounts online and feedback showed our users were clamouring for this feature. They lead busy, global lives and expect online access to their funds so that they can make the high profile grants to charities they want to, as well as manage their accounts in a simple way at any time and from any time zone.
Customers are used to intuitive, seamless and secure experiences so the challenge was to deliver a compelling customer experience that caters for digital natives who expect the whole journey to happen on their phone, with mobile now accounting for 65% of digital media time.
Before this project, the process of applying to open a CADF account was paper based – a slow, cumbersome experience and a barrier to opening an account. It also required manual data entry which was wasteful and prone to error. A quicker turnaround between a client applying and their account being opened was essential.
My contribution
- I led the design to deliver a far more professional client experience and more competitive product, now far superior to our competitors.
- I started the discovery phase with a kickoff session with the Product Owner and others, where we discussed the problem and came up with ideas. Ran a provisional persona exercise to get to know our typical users.
- Initial concepts and whiteboard sessions for core workflows. Detailed visual designs in Sketch for each page and state of the experience, ensuring design was consistent with my digital style guide.
- Prototype created with Marvel, which I put in front of some volunteers giving them a series of tasks. This helped me validate a few concepts. An example of this was a five-second test. I showed the design to a user for five seconds and then removed it from sight and asked them what they remembered about the design.
- Remote user testing with existing customers for feedback, which allowed me to iterate further.
- Delivered design specifications and annotations to the development team and worked closely with them as they implemented my ideas.
