Blog update #6 – Experiment Abstract and materials
1.Pilot test
The pilot test showed that participants can finish the experiment tasks within 30 minutes. However, there were some issues:
The think-aloud instruction was missing. Changes were made to the task description to include it.
Participants focused on the content of the donation event when they decide on the amount to donate. Therefore, we made remarks to ourselves that we need to remind participants throughout the whole experiment.
After participants looked at another interface, it is natural for them to change the amount to donate to the previous event. Changes were made to the task description that they can change their decision at any point.
The total number of people donated to an event was missing. Changes were made to the interfaces to include it.
One participant did not know that he can read more detailed information by clicking the “NEXT” button on the event list page. Therefore, we changed the button to “More Details”.
One participant almost missed the friends element. Therefore, we included the color version of the friends’ profile pictures in the task scenario given to the participant, and if the participants still fail to notice the key interface element, we will walk them through each of them.
2. Experiment Abstract
Motivating potential donors to donate is a huge challenge for charities. We introduce the use of segmented progress bar and community element in donation interfaces. A segmented progress bar is divided into segments proportional to the amount each individual has contributed. The community element is shown by highlighting users’ contacts on social media. To test the effects of these elements on promoting donation behaviour, we conducted an experiment with a total of 8 users. Our results show that (1) the community element is an important motivator for participants before they decided to donate to a charity (2) the segments of segmented progress bar can help participants to determine the appropriate amount to donate, and (3) events with segmented progress bar and community element has a higher mean level of engagement and trust for an organization. Overall, segmented progress bar and community element may be useful to motivate donation behaviour.
3.Revised supplementary experiment materials (no limit)
No changes was made to the consent form.
Some changes were made to the study instrument:
An instruction to ask participants to think-aloud during the experiment was added. This is to ensure that we can get insight into what the participant is thinking.
An instruction to allow participants to change the donation amount to an event at any point of the experiment was added. This allows flexibility to our experiment and we can better trace the rationale of the decision of participants.
Instructions to remind the interviewer to walk the participants through the interfaces if they seem to be confused or fail to notice the key interface element was added. This is to ensure that participants will decide on the donation amount according to the key interface elements.
A question “What about the interface caused you to donate this amount of money?” was added to the coding sheet. By adding this additional question, we can better probe the participant.
Four donation events were added to replace the placeholder names.
A color version of the friends’ profile pictures was added to the task scenario given to the participant. This is to ensure that participants can better relate the task scenario to the interfaces.
An instruction that remind participants there is no payment process in the experiment is added. This is to avoid participants misunderstand that they need to make actual payments.
Some changes were made to the interfaces:
Four realistic donation events were added to replace the placeholder events.
Notifications that a feature has not been completed were added to functionalities that were implemented horizontally in the interfaces.
Different number of goals are added to each event to make the events more realistic.
The payment page is removed to avoid participants misunderstand that they need to make actual payments.
The total number of people donated to an event was added because this is a standard information that should be shown in a donation event.
The “NEXT” button on the event list page was replaced with the “More Details” button. This is to ensure that participants know that they can read more detailed information by clicking this button.
No major changes, except for small wording and clarity edits.
Removed note about how Raymond knows about these charitable organizations, as it isn’t particularly relevant to our interface design.
Raymond continues to represent an individual who simply wants more regular, personalized feedback about the impact of his donations, as that would help him feel more connected to the cause and the organization as a whole.
Bella:
Small wording and clarity edits.
Changed Bella to be the 35-year-old accountant, as money is not a big concern for her compared to being able to trust the organization she donates to.
Bob:
Revamped Bob as a task example overall to be representative of some of the people we interviewed in our field study.
A younger, 20-year-old college student, where money can be tight.
However, he wants to help out, especially when it’s for a cause that’s personal or relevant to him. (e.g. natural disasters in his area, for funding education for children in need).
He feels like it’s hard for his donation to make an impact, as he can only give a little. This is something that we would add to our requirements: the importance of having a community who donates along with you – realizing that if everyone gives a little, then it’ll have a big impact.
Task Example #1: Raymond
Raymond is a 27-year-old university graduate. He has worked as an engineer for 3 years. Raymond deeply cares about others and intends to donate a portion of his income to help those in need. However, he’s concerned about where his money goes to and the impact of his donations. He is a frequent donor and is especially motivated when he sees stories of donees and how hard their living situations are. However, most charitable organizations are really busy, and often struggle to have the resources to personally inform donors (even regular ones) about the impact of their donations. Thus, Raymond sometimes feels a bit isolated and disconnected from these organizations, reducing his motivation to donate more money. He wants to establish a long-term donor-to-donee relationship with these organizations and wishes that there was some way that he could keep up to date with how he can help, and how his contributions have made a difference to those in need.
Task Example #2: Bella
Bella is a 35-year-old accountant. She was taught by her family that “helping others is a virtue”. She was raised to become a very charitable person that shows concern about people who need help. In the past, she would always be willing to donate money to any charitable organization that she meets, such as those with charity workers who are fundraising on the streets. However, many news reports have showed that some of the organizations who are fundraising are merely scams. She felt conflicted as her contributions were surprisingly not her original intention, and thus destroyed her trustworthiness in these organizations. This has changed the way she donates money – now, she only wants to donate to trusted charitable organizations, such as those recommended or donated to by her friends and family.
Task Example #3: Bob
Bob is a 20-year-old college student who is currently studying overseas. As a result, money is tight – but he recognizes that being able to attend university is already a privilege in itself, and thus tries to donate money to those who need it more whenever he can. He is especially motivated to donate whenever he hears about causes that are personal to him, such as when an earthquake occurred in the area near his hometown. Because money is tight, he can only spare small amounts of money to donate. He feels like it’s hard for his donation by itself to make an impact, and sometimes wonders if he should even bother donating. He wishes that there was some way for him to realize he’s not alone in donating money, and that he’s actually making an impact, even if he only gives a little.
Blog Update #3b – Low-Fidelity Prototype(s) Demonstration:
After initial iterations of storyboard and wire-framing (see figure 1), we came up with a paper prototype that captures main steps of donation process with a focus on providing effective, motivating feedback to donors. We approach this objective by using the following features:
A segmented progress bar for a donation event that visually presents contribution of each donator
The ability to see friends’ donation to an event on the segmented progress bar
Notification to update donors on the progress of the donation objective
Clear and real time feedback to show the impacts of donation
The video clip demonstrates how our prototype supports Raymond to donate more confidently:
Figure 1: Storyboard for a community centered design
Blog Update #3c – Additional Information about Prototype(s):
We chose to support all three task examples, including:
Raymond, who wishes to be more connected to the donation events and to be more clear on where his donations go
Bella, who has doubt on trustworthiness of donation events and would like to have reference from friends or family
Bob, who has limited financial resources but wishes to make impacts with a community
During the field study, we noticed that most participants are motivated to donate by causes related to intrinsic motivation such as emotional connection, relatedness, and donation sustainability. We therefore decided to focus on motivating donation by clearly showing what the donation is for, how it is processed and where it goes, as well as involving elements of community.
The scope of our prototype is both horizontal and vertical. To better illustrate a full image of donation process and give the context of the key tasks, we have simple setups for a donation events list, the checkout process and donation complete popups. The focus of our prototype is on the donation page and notification features to provide effective feedbacks to users.
Having a clear donating goal and breakdown of donation were found to be very effective in motivating donation behaviour. We decided to capture these two design focuses with an interactive progress bar. The interactive progress bar has a clearly stated donating objective, such as building a house for children. We set several milestones on the bar to present the impacts and breakdowns of donation. Noticing that responsibility tends to be weakened as individual stay within a social group (bystander effect), we intend to motivate individual contribution by having each donator’s donation visualized on the progress bar as sections proportional to the amount they donated. Including users in donation events’ profile, we hope to build connection and relatedness between donors and donees.
Majority of our field study participants donate with reference from their family or friends, as these donations were described as more trustworthy and relevant. We incorporate this in our design by highlighting users’ contacts on social media on the progress bar. We envision that making impacts with a group of friends or family members would buffer the happiness of donation.
To keep donors engaged with the donated event, the prototype would notify donors when a milestone got reached. The notification provides donors with the most updated information on the progress of donation objectives. We hope to build a long term connection between donors and donees with accurate and real time feedback to build trust, empathy and relevance.
Blog Update #3d – Walkthrough Report:
We carried out a cognitive walkthrough with two of our group members, one for each of Raymond and Bella. The task was to donate money to help fund the construction of a house for children, one of the donation events on our interface.
Overall, the walkthrough went smoothly – however, we learned that parts of our interface weren’t immediately clear or obvious to the user. On the first page, with a list of various donation events, users were hesitant, as they weren’t sure if they were going to be directed to immediately donate money, or if it was just to find out more details about the event.
On the main event page, users felt overwhelmed – there were a lot of different elements on the page. Although the progress bar was what caught the user’s eye (as was intended), the user was not clear about what the segments on the bar represented at first. It was only after they pressed on a segment, that a pop-up saying “thank-you” to the person who donated, that it “clicked”, and they understood that each segment of the bar was a donation by an individual, with the length of the segment proportional to the amount donated. To solve these problems, we plan to streamline the donation event page, reducing unnecessary details and paying more attention to the grouping and alignment of interface elements. Help labels or definitions of our terminology (e.g. donation events, tags, goals) could also be provided.
Users easily understood how to use the donation slider to specify the amount of money to donate. However, upon donating and revisiting the event page, they felt like the presence of a goal update (which provided feedback about the impact of their donations) was not visible enough. To address this, we could provide a more prominent visual indicator of a new update, or perhaps automatically show the most recent update to users by default.
The walkthrough covered the task example for Raymond by clearly giving feedback in the forms of various media when a goal is reached because of his donations. In addition, because donated money is all going towards funding a specific donation event, Raymond knows exactly how it will be used. Goals also help breakdown costs and needs of the organization, allowing him to see exactly how he can help. Personalized thank you notes and notifications make Raymond feel more connected to these organizations and their causes.
We also cover the task example for Bella, who is concerned about trust. Donation goals clearly outline where money goes, increasing transparency. In addition, by seeing Facebook friends who have also donated underneath the progress bar, she develops a greater sense of trust towards a particular charity.
Blog Update #3e – Proposed goals of experiment:
To test if the inclusion of community-related elements (e.g. Facebook friends who have also donated) would increase user trust in a given charity.
To assess the impact of establishing clear goals, and subsequent feedback, in encouraging increased user engagement and donations.
To test if a segmented progress bar, or one that highlights individual user contributions, would encourage users to donate more money.
Based on findings from our field study, we settled with the above 3 goals for our experiment. Although a significant finding from previous milestones was on the significance of generating emotion through visuals to motivate donations, we felt like it was difficult to adequately investigate emotion within the scope of 444. In addition, it did not seem to have as many interesting design decisions that we could look at, as it seemed to revolve more around data than design.
Our first goal looks at the impact of friends and family. In our field study, we found that users were more likely to trust and donate to a charity when their friends or family had previously donated to it. We hope to measure the impact of including Facebook friends by asking participants to self-report on their sense of trust in the organization.
Our second goal examines goals. Including specific goals makes it clear to potential donors how their money is used and what kind of needs a charity might have. We measure this by potentially manipulating the presence or absence of such goals, and observe if an impact is made on the amount of money a user might donate.
Lastly, we look at our segmented progress bar. This might augment a user’s sense of community, as they are able to see their own and everyone else’s contributions. We measure this in a similar manner to our second goal.
