Role clarity comes before commitment
68 of 76 respondents rated clear role information quite important or crucial. I made time, location, requirements, and responsibilities part of the decision to apply, rather than information to discover later.
Giving.sg · NVPC · Volunteer product design · 2025
Helping volunteers turn intent into action.
As a volunteer product designer for NVPC, I redesigned Giving.sg’s mobile volunteering journey. I connected research synthesis, product priorities, interaction design, and prototyping to help people find a relevant role, apply, and track participation.
The product challenge
Make a relevant opportunity easier to act on.
The opportunity was to close the gap between wanting to volunteer and completing the next step. I scoped the redesign around four decisions: finding a suitable role, understanding the commitment, applying, and knowing what happens afterwards.
49/81survey respondents selected opportunities that match their interests as a motivator.
48/81selected insufficient role detail as a barrier to volunteering.
37/81selected unclear application or sign-up steps as a barrier.
Survey: 81 responses; multiple selections allowed. Counts describe this research sample.
Research → product priorities
Three findings that shaped the experience.
Keep the chosen opportunity in view
Eight interviews exposed uncertainty beyond discovery. One participant lost the selected opportunity after sign-in and could not tell whether the application was complete. I translated that evidence into continuity and status requirements.
Connect the handoffs
The journey audit showed that browsing, role details, and account entry needed to work as one task. I connected those handoffs in the prototype and introduced a clear destination for participation status.
01 / Find a relevant opportunity
Help people judge a role before they commit.
I organised discovery around the criteria people use to decide: interests, skills, schedule, and location. The design supports comparison before asking for a commitment.
- Evidence
- 49/81 selected interest fit as a motivator; 48/81 flagged missing role details.
- Design decision
- Bring interests, skills, and filters into discovery; keep commitments and requirements visible in role details.
- Product rationale
- People can judge fit using visible criteria before investing time in an application.
Trade-off: Make relevance explainable. Interest and skill cues support the choice; the role details let people verify it.
02 / Preserve the volunteer’s intent
Don't make sign-in erase the reason someone came.
The volunteer journey breaks if an account step returns someone to the beginning or leaves the application state unclear.
- Evidence
- 37/81 flagged unclear sign-up steps. Interview feedback also exposed lost context after authentication.
- Design decision
- Design preference setup to support discovery, and define a return-to-opportunity requirement for authentication.
- Product rationale
- Account setup should move the current task forward. Login-state persistence is an implementation dependency.
03 / Apply with confidence
Make the commitment and next step unmistakable.
Finding a promising role only helps if someone understands what applying involves and sees a clear result.
- Evidence
- The survey and journey audit linked application uncertainty to scattered role details and unclear steps.
- Design decision
- Connect role details, the application form, confirmation, and “My Events” as one flow.
- Product rationale
- A clear completion state closes the immediate task and gives the volunteer a place to return.
04 / Know what happens next
Design beyond the submit button.
Volunteers need to know what happens after an application and what participation they've completed.
- Evidence
- Interviews surfaced needs for follow-up and participation records, especially among volunteers who wanted recognition.
- Design decision
- Create “My Events” for status and event history, with an optional completion-record flow.
- Product rationale
- Status gives return visits a purpose. Verified records depend on organiser confirmation and platform operations.
Design system and delivery readiness
One interaction language across the journey.
I translated NVPC’s brand guidance into reusable foundations, forms, navigation, and component states. The design system keeps discovery, application, and participation consistent, and gives future iterations a shared starting point.
I incorporated the design-system rules into my AI workflow and reviewed generated screens against the intended interactions. Delivery priorities include form validation, responsive states, authentication continuity, and organiser-owned status updates.
Validation and measurement
Faster task completion in prototype testing.
8 → 3 min
Reported average task completion time: original flow versus redesigned prototype, tested with five participants. This is a prototype result, not a live conversion metric.
What to validate in a live rollout
Leading signals
Role comprehension, task completion, form drop-off and confidence after applying.
Longer-term signals
Completed applications, confirmed participation, return use and support contacts about status.
Reflection
The experience depends on the service behind it.
I turned research into a connected volunteer journey and a testable mobile prototype. A rollout would require alignment with product, engineering, and organisers on three dependencies: listing quality, authentication continuity, and reliable participation status. Those service decisions are essential to the experience.