Context for Baha'i Youth Retreat Programming App
Each year members of the Baháʼí Faith coordinate with local communities to host youth retreats to encourage unity and leadership within young adult and would like a product to assist with this process.
Problem
Coordinating the multitude of elements involved in a Baha'i faith youth retreat is undeniably complex and time-consuming, often leading to challenges in planning. Through conversations with experienced coordinators, we've discovered that managing crucial documents received from parents can quickly become disorganized when saved to a shared drive. Additionally, communicating updates and edits to retreat plans among various coordinators can become a daunting task due to the multitude of communication channels in use.
Goal
The goal is to have a streamlined and efficient retreat coordination.
Solution
After going through the four steps of product development and after discovery we developed a solution - an all in one application that does schedule planning, task management, communications, and file saving.
Product Approach
The design process was executed in the following steps. At each, I spent time and attention to gain insights to apply to the design of the product.
Empathize with users
Define the Problem
Ideate
Test
Discovery Research: Retreat Coordinators User Interviews
I engaged in a series of qualitative user interviews involving a cohort of five dedicated coordinators from the Brooklyn, NY Bahai Faith community, focusing on the intricacies of youth retreat coordination. The invaluable insights gleaned from these discussions yielded the following essential findings:
Key Pain Points and Themes
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Extreme problems scheduling
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The ball is dropped for communication of important updates to retreat logistics
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It's hard ot find important documents, this results in delayed youth registration.
User Personas
After the discovery reproach the two personas were created
Underrepresented Group
As the coordinators navigate conversations with community members, an important endeavor is to be as inclusive as possible with a diversity in economic, linguistic/cultural, and ability backgrounds. To give an example, a retreat coordinator is in communications with a family who's only access to send a copy of a permission slip is via a mobile phone. In this instance, it is most important to be open minded and flexible to the access and capacity of users and to try to make the app mirror this level of function. This is why the product is a web responsive site.
Product Hypothesis
Ideate
Solutions
Interview Responses & Master Wishlist
After reviewing responses from the initial interview and further speaking with retreat coordinators the following list of features was compiled to create a Master Wishlist.
Master Wishlist
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Confidential document organization
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Permission slips
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Messenger & calls feature
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Contact information
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Parking lot (locus for adding pending ideas)
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Parentboard (daily updates of youth activity for parents)
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Organizing kids by households
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Devotions tab
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Case specific tabs for tasks
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Avatars to personalize experience
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Way to oversee designated tasks
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Spotify integrated
*This app was also hoped to be used by the three groups involved in youth retreat - parents, youth, and coordinators. The greatest priority was camp coordinators.
Major problem areas to address
Before the app
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the organization of multiple documents amongst the many different platforms of communication, storage, and documenting was confusing
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updating team members on schedule changes was inefficient using shared excel sheets; this also applied to tasked responsibilities as they were often lost or forgotten amidst different platforms of communication.
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communication with parents and youth was difficult for retreat coordinators because of the various methods of communication (Google Voice, WhatsApp, Android, iPhone, etc) platforms.
Flow
Wireframe
Test
Designs
User Testing: Prototypes
Research Study:
Strategy: I conducted virtual usability tests, screen sharing with 4-5 retreat coordinators
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This was a Zoom call (15 minutes). In this interview, asked coordinators to complete four tasks.
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Each retreat coordinator was given the below tasks to try to accomplish, to:
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Add an event to the retreat calendar,
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Register a youth to the roster,
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Make a call to a parent to retrieve a child's permission slip
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Assign a task to a fellow coordinator to pickup groceries for snack on the retreat
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Results:
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Quickly from results, I realized there were too many features. The app attempted to offer access to programming to all three groups of people involved - the youth, parents, and camp coordinators. This was was too much for this stage of development
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The major features, Schedule, Youth Roster, Communications, and Document hosting were present.
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It was clear that users felt that the menu was not intuitive and could be more clear.
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The Youth Roster was difficult to understand, particularly in how the households that held multiple youth were organized in the structure of the tab page.
Key Takeaways
Application should be solely for the camp coordinators to program the youth retreat, and the menu needs to be more intuitive and features functions should be clear
User Testing: Round Two
Research Study:
Strategy: I conducted a second virtual usability tests, screen sharing with 4-5 retreat coordinators
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Zoom (15 minute interview). I continued the same questions for consistency from the first round of testing in this second round with an additional question regarding notifications.
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Each retreat coordinator was given the below tasks to try to accomplish and certain pages to try to:
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Add an event to the retreat calendar,
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Register a youth to the roster,
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Make a call to a parent to retrieve a child's permission slip
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Assign a task to a fellow coordinator to pickup groceries for snack on the retreat
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Check what notifications exist for you
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Results:
Design
Creating a color scheme
A color scheme was added to the design of the youth retreat application. The purpose of the application was to provide efficient assistance for a youthful program. The energy of the colors ought to be vibrant and animated yet clear. The direction was something playful yet simple.
The Key Features
In order to eliminate the difficulty of having multiple platforms to communicate, store data, and administer tasks, all these points were brought into one app
Notifications were added to the application to provide a quick and efficient communication to retreat coordinators of schedule updates, task assignments, and youth registration
A notification center will also provide a centralized place of actions and changes taken by coordinators.
The Baha'i Faith Youth Retreat App
Figma
Reflection
A final usability test with 4 users allowed for me to receive the following feedback:
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The menu felt much more intuitive and easy to follow
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The Schedule feature was exactly what coordinators had hoped to see in an application
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The youth roster "household" aspect was appreciated
Outcome
The coordinators of the Brooklyn Bahai Community can now with this application program youth retreats in an efficient and engaging way. This application will allow for retreat coordinators to organize youth information, important documents, communication, and more all in one place.