A new way for Young Storyteller mentors to connect with volunteers.

An intuitive, accessible profile database for easier actor recruitment.

Los Angeles based non-profit Young Storytellers partners children with supportive ‘head’ mentors to develop their writing skills and gain confidence through creative expression.

Provide Head Mentors with a profile database so they can easily cast actor volunteers for performances. How could the recruitment experience be streamlined for efficiency and depth? I led the design to allow users to search with specific criteria.

• Understand stakeholder’s current behavior
• Understand Head Mentors viewpoints
• Create an easy search interface with diversity and inclusion in mind

Head Mentors did not have an easy way to connect with actors outside of their network.

• Head mentors were not casting a diverse group, and ultimately not meeting Young Storyteller's goals.
• Young Storytellers want to emphasize the importance of diversity (across a multitude of characteristics) to represent the student body they are performing for.
• The actor recruiting was largely handled through emailing, an inefficient and non-scalable system.

• The backend capability is limited and couldn’t accommodate a user login.
• Any modification to a user’s account has to be manually entered by a Young Storyteller facilitator.

How are Head Mentors currently casting their performers and what are the priority details for each actor?

The goal was to understand how casting for the performances worked. What key experiences, traits, and skill-set were helpful in determining which actor to cast. It came to light from user interviews the following key insights:

1. Currently only receives actor name and email. Head Mentors would like transparency regarding the actor’s experience and capabilities to make casting easier.

2. Needs more agency in the recruitment process. The current behavior is to reach out via email to a YS facilitator, but this can cause planning delays and is not an efficient use of time for the coordinator.

3. Priority details are: An actor’s ethnic background, gender, and acting abilities.

To understand how user details are prioritized, I analyzed the following in-depth profile platforms.

• Profile photo is seen first, and name secondary, contact details as third.
• Profile card quick-view highlights priority details as bullet points for easy readability and when click “view profile” a pop-up window appears with longer descriptive content.
• Minimal 2 color design, 1 page layout.
• Consider prioritizing “search.” This should be the predominant tool seen as the results from searching are secondary.

See comparative summary

The volunteer application form needed a redesign to include important acting characteristics and distinguishing characteristics such as physical and neurological differences.

• Include progress bar on application to signify to the user: total amount of time and steps required to complete form.
• Redesign and update current application form to include relevant acting characteristics
• Include geographic map location plug-in as per Developer guidance.
• Integrate criteria to capture physical and neurological differences, special acting talents, and specific acting questions.

The primary aim of the profile page is to easily recruit actor volunteers while integrating Young Storyteller’s values of diversity and inclusivity.

Several sessions of user testing and design review with primary stakeholders directed the priority takeaways that shaped the direction of the final version of the profile database.

• Include alternate view (card/list) for alternate browsing option.
• Adjust top-facing profile details to: Gender, Ethnic Background, and Experience.
• Modify 3 horizontal profile cards to 4, for efficient browsing.
• Large profile image to quickly identify actors for roles.
• Collapsed menu to include: specific talents, language, neurodiversity and disability.

A focused dashboard for 'Head Mentors' to access primary resources.

While Young Storytellers is currently providing a central login dashboard, a future goal, is to create a dashboard that is unique to that particular head mentor user.

This was an awesome opportunity for the experience of working alongside a dedicated team. I learned some important takeaways from this project related to collaboration and business processes.

Include the developer early. Looping the developer in the initial conversation regarding design helped me to determine the feasibility of the direction.

Consider interrelated systems. The initial intention of this project was to formulate a design for the volunteer profile page only. Once research and user interviews began it became clear that the pre-existing application form needed to be updated.

Place clear visible labels within entry fields. I had initially designed the form entry fields with instructional placeholder text. After reading article, “Placeholders in Form Fields Are Harmful” from the Neilson Norman Group, I modified the placeholder text to be read as a descriptive example instead. Read article here.
Integrate company values in the design. The profile details are hierarchically placed with Young Storyteller’s values of cultivating an inclusive and diverse community.