Market Smart
New features to help fundraisers manage their donor pipeline
Market Smart uses automation to help fundraisers manage their pipeline. I designed new features end to end: filters so gift officers can build nuanced donor lists, and reporting for automated email sends. I interpreted the product manager's qualitative testing to iterate, and testing showed a planned portfolio feature wasn't essential, saving engineering time.
- Role
- Product designer
- Worked with
- Product manager, CEO
- Platform
- Web
- Focus
- Data and reporting
The goal
Design new features to help gift officers cultivate and manage donors and reach their fundraising goals.
My role
I worked on the new features end to end, including UX research, wireframing and prototyping.
Understanding the problems
Over time, the product manager and CEO realized clients needed more nuanced lists of potential donors from their database. We plotted out a few journeys, and my job was to go deeper and create journeys that would get users the best results.
The other challenge was making full use of a sophisticated email automation system, with detailed reports and overviews.
Three goals
Create a filter system so gift officers can build lists easily.
Design a new reporting system for automated email sends.
Set up a portfolio-building system for each gift officer.
The gift officers
Having worked on fundraising teams myself, I understood these users well: they're often overworked and underpaid. The product manager also shared existing personas, which rounded out the picture.
Ideation and testing
I started with low- to mid-fidelity designs and encouraged the team to test early, before going to high fidelity. The product manager ran several qualitative tests and shared reports for me to analyze and interpret.
Early landing page and filters
- ✓Clear flow of filter requirements
- ✓Clear layout with good use of space
- ✗The M and P labels didn't make sense to users
- ✗Location and gift likelihood categories needed more nuance
- ✗Symbols in the colour ratings were confusing
Automated email reporting
- ✓Easier to read and understand the mission
- ✗Users wanted to see more of the feed
The portfolio feature
Testing showed this feature wasn't as essential as expected, because fundraisers use other databases to build portfolios. We dropped it, saving money and hours of engineering work.
Final designs
Learnings
- The hardest part was interpreting quantitative and qualitative data I hadn't gathered myself. I learned to take data from another source, analyze and prioritize it, and use it to iterate on designs.