Kingdom Connect Case Study
Helping a values-based company simplify their platform navigation and better define their solution.
by Jessica Soberanes
SCOPE & CONTRAINTSKingdom Connect is a marketplace for Christian vendors and administrators. Our team took a step back to better define who those vendors and administrators are, and how to best help them find each other.
1
Context & Framework
2
Interview Insights
3
Design Sprint Solutions
4
User Testing Insights & Updates
Scope:
A team of three designers was tasked with helping a newly launched marketplace for Christian based vendors and administrators to better understand the user needs, wants and pain points before redesigning the next iteration of the platform experience.
I focused on the search feature of the platform.
Contraints:
The project had a 5 week timeline. The biggest constraint for the project was the limited user base. A more thorough round of interviews and testing is recommended before any further changes are made to the platform.
“We want to make a LinkedIn for the Christian community.”
-Kingdom Connect Leadership
1- CONTEXT & FRAMEWORKA heuristic analysis of the current website and competitive analysis of the marketplace revealed the need to take a step back and reconsider the platform organization and solution concept.
Heuristic analysis:
The design team conducted a heuristic analysis on the current platform website focusing on three main user flows- creating an account, creating a listing, and searching for a listing in their local area. We found three main heuristics throughout the usability problems observed.
Visibility of system status
Each user flow did not have sufficient indications of system status in order to help the user understand if their actions were successful. Particularly, the create an account flow had a critical barrier to users finishing the process and accessing the platform.
Consistency and standards
Much of the platform content and graphic output was not consistent or clear. In addition, the labels used for different features were not consistent and made it unclear what the function of each feature was.
User control and freedom
Many of the possible buttons or tasks within each user flow took the user away from the flow without a warning or way to return to the previous flow. In addition, the search function did not properly search the available listings.
Competitive analysis:
Our team decided to complete a competitive analysis in order to present some existing solutions to the client and see what they think of other solutions. Our goal was to better understand the overall client goals for the platform.
TaskRabbit- Unified user experiences
The TaskRabbit website that finds service providers for home owners has two completely different experiences for the homeowners looking for help and the service providers.
The client team decided that their platform should have only one main user experience for anyone accessing the site.
Church Staffing- Overall platform search
We examined a platform that was a similar concept and found that it had a overall search of the website that any user could go to and find different things- including a job, individuals looking for a job and a local church.
The client team responded positively to the feature of an overall search instead of their current solution which includes separate searches for “jobs” and “groups.”
Upwork- Internal messaging system
The Upwork freelance job system includes an internal messaging system that allows employers and job seekers to communicate directly.
The client team continued to affirm that a internal messaging system would make the most sense for their platform.
LinkedIn- Professional social platform vs. job board
The client team looked to LinkedIn as an example of what they wanted to build for their users. This brought up the concept of their platform being a combination of a professional social platform and a job board.
Our design team understood this desire from the client, and also realized that we needed a better understanding of the users in this space to see if this type of platform would truly address their needs and pain points.
Platform organization and overall concept.
After completing the heuristic and competitive analysis, our team had a better idea of the current state of the platform and what the client team’s goals were for the next iteration of the platform.
Yet, what our team recognized was the lack of user based information, both qualitative and quantitative, about the prospective users. Without a direct understanding of the users’ needs, motivations and behaviors, we believed the platform concept would not be as strong.
We proposed to the client team a slightly different direction than they were considering.
Original Direction
Proposed Direction
The main question we were looking to answer more in depth included:
What user problem is this platform trying to solve?
Test current platform.
Provide design recommendations based on tests without qualitative user data.
User interviews, gain qualitative data.
Design sprint, easily test platform changes and gain quantitative data.
Provide design recommendations based on qualitative and quantitative data gained.
“To find ideas, find problems.
To find problems, talk to people.”
Julie Zhou, designer & author
2- Interview Insights
Interview insights indicated that churches and faith organizations were looking for a more narrow scope of services. This meant the MVP was more specific than previously thought.
User interview insights & further validation.
We conducted four user interviews with a range of potential user categories including church/organization leadership, a gig worker, and a church volunteer. We found six main user insights from the interviews.
Because the user base was very narrow, there are several interview insights that we found that would need to be validated by further interviewing. I have indicated below the insights that need further validation.
Common values & trust
When looking to hire or volunteer, common values, beliefs and behavior are really important- they create trust and better partnerships.
In person social connection
Social connection is a really pivotal part of hiring people and volunteering at churches.
Longer term engagement
Initial service/hire requirements are centered around a temporary need, but often lead to longer term engagement.
User interview insights that need further validation and are being taken as assumption moving forward:
Gig type work
Types of roles needed aren’t likely service providers’ full time job/ only job- more freelance or secondary gig type work.
Leadership is set
Churches don’t need help with longer term and higher leadership positions. There are already established paths which work well.
Local needs and community
The main difficulty was finding people outside of the already established group, but within the local community.
Persona categories & assumptions to be validated.
Because the user base was very narrow, our team did not conduct enough user interviews of each possible persona type in order to fully flesh out personas. We did keep in mind general persona categories to keep particular user needs in mind that we are assuming and need further validation through more varied user interviews.
Church leadership
Church leadership could include a range of individuals, including those who are more hands on looking for individuals to hire, to higher leadership who have the final say if a hire is accepted.
Gig worker
Most gig workers are looking to participate outside of full time work or responsibilities, either making a bit of cash on the side or getting more involved with their faith community.
Community volunteer
Most volunteers are looking to help out outside of full time work or responsibilities. They typically want to get more involved to support their faith community.
These interview highlights and general persona categories were critical to informing the design thinking behind the design sprint direction and scope.
We learned that churches are looking to find gig type workers that might lead to longer term hires and are really focused on finding individuals with similar values, beliefs and behavior. Because of this, we chose to focus on the search feature scope of the Kingdom Connect platform and ask:
How might we help churches and faith based organizations more easily and quickly find gig workers with similar values and beliefs that might lead to longer term hires and successful community additions within their local community?
“Let us give ourselves to service.”
Romans 12.7
2- Design Sprint Solutions
Quickly finding a solution that fits two user flows. Helping churches/organizations and individuals find what they are looking for.
Long term goals.
With our knowledge from the competitive analysis, stakeholder interviews, and interview insights, we clarified a long term goal that would center any potential solutions resulting from the design sprint.
Kingdom Connect will be a platform where people can connect with and provide services for like minded local churches and individuals, and churches can find local trustworthy freelance/gig service providers/volunteers.
Possible challenges.
Our team laid out the possible challenges to keep in mind while we ideated on possible solutions to the long term goal.
1. Churches struggling to change the way they find trustworthy service providers and connect with their local community.
2. Convincing churches and churchgoers to engage with a new digital platform where other social media/ freelance platforms already exist.
2.1. Churches maintaining their platform presence and keeping it up to date.
3. Transitioning initial digital connections towards in-person meetings and introductions.
3.1. Helping churches or community members feel like they can trust the connections they make on the platform.
4. Finding the right parameters for connections to be “local” for each type of user.
5. Incentivizing volunteers to attend their church events without deterring them with the need to creating an account or taking extra steps.
User journey maps.
In order to best understand how a solution might fit into users’ current difficulties, we laid out user journey maps. We found that more of the hiring process might occur outside of the platform experience than we previously had thought.
Journey Map legend:
Steps that occur on the website.
Steps that occur outside of the website.
User journey for Church or organization looking to find a service provider.
User journey for service provider looking to find a local gig or opportunity.
Solution concept proposed; a search based on service.
Once we had the project goals and user journey maps established, we looked at several different solutions for the goal outlined above.
We chose to move forward with a solution that was based on “services” that individuals and churches could provide and offer for each other in their local community.
Search for “services”
Individuals and churches would create a profile on the website and list the “services offered” and “services provided.” This would then allow churches and individuals to conduct a universal search on the website to find particular services in their local communities. These services can vary widely from musicians to volunteers to mass services.
Call for services
For example, on their profile, a church could list a “call for services” (think of this like an ad) for a drummer. Then, an individual community member could search the website for “drummer” or “musician” and find the call for services listed by the church and connect directly about that job.
Services Offered
In another example, an individual community member might list being a drummer as a “services offered” on their personal profile. A local church that is looking for a drummer would then be able to search the website for “drummer” and see this individual's profile appear. They could then message this individual directly about an opportunity to be a drummer in their church.
Putting each type of job or need under the umbrella of “services”- varying from a “call for services” (a job ad where a user is looking to hire), “services offered” (what an individual is willing to be hired for) and “services provided” (what the church already provides)- allows us to create one universal search on the website that both churches and individuals would use to find what they need. This avoids the need to create two completely different searches and website experiences for each type of user.
The terms “services”, “services offered” and “services provided” are not necessarily the final or correct terms the team should use, but are a good starting point to test with users.
The word “service” is a big part of the Christian community and also implies a more informal context that is often associated with freelance, volunteer or gig type work.
Ideation on critical screens.
Once this solution concept was narrowed down, I ideated on the critical screens within the search process, looking at two different flows from the perspective of the church/organization, and of the individual.
Individual user flow.
Church/organization user flow.
Low fidelity prototype.
Our team then further developed each user flow. My scope included the search page flow and a mini onboarding flow to introduce users to the solution concept and help them understand how the platform worked.
Search results page.
Mini onboarding modal.
“Supposing is good, but finding out is better.”
Mark Twain
4- User testing insights & updates
Testing revealed the search criteria and call for services information needed to be refined.
User testing insights.
Feedack from users on the search page and surrounding features let us know that in order for the search process to be really successful, search filters and search results need to have more seamless continuity.
Search feature clarification
Search result content
AD content
In addition, our team originally hypothesized that sending messages outside of the website itself via email would be sufficient for users to connect with each other.
After testing, creating a messaging feature on the app works for some users, while other users would prefer to just call the church directly. More testing is needed to better understand how the overall user base would best be served.
Regardless of the location of messaging, making it clear how the messaging works through the website is crucial to user satisfaction, and the ability to messaging about a call for services needs to be prioritized.
Design updates and upgrades.
In addition to taking into account the user testing feedback outlined above, our team created some high fidelity screens in order to give examples of how the current Kingdom Connect branding could be applied to the more simplified solution we proposed after the design sprint.
Conclusions.
Overall, the client team gave us positive feedback on our undertaking and results. We took a step back from the current platform to clarify the pain points, needs and constraints their narrow user base faces. We provided and tested a conceptual solution that would simplify the platform, provide value to both their critical user flows, and help churches, organizations and inviduals better connect.