This app was created by The Life You Can Save organisation — founded by Peter Singer — to promote the approach of effective giving. Their goal is to change the culture of giving in more wealthy countries as wel as increasing annual donations to impactful non-profits that aid people living in extreme poverty.
Home Screen
The layout of home screens usually differ from app to app depending on the purpose of the app. This is because this is usually the first screen that the user would interact with upon opening the app. In this case, the user would be seeing a slideshow of containers, all of them giving the users options of different fund goals and which different parts of life they would want to aid.
I feel that this is appropriate as it aligns with the organisation’s goals with this app of encouraging its users to donate to the needy.
The way the text “5000 dollars” is highlighted in purple emphasises on the monetary aspect of this app, which makes sense since users would be using this app to donate.
Additionally, the choice of the colour purple for the accent colour is interesting as it usually symbolises wealth and prosperity. Given the organisation’s target audience is a more wealthy group, I’d say this is quite appropriate as the colour would speak to them. It could also symbolise the organisation’s desire to give these families in need the opportunity to prosper.
Custom Goal
The home screen also features the option to set a custom goal, which gives users autonomy to decide one their own milestones in their donations.
The container to set a custom goal is designed in a way where the “add button” is the largest and most prominent. This makes sense as the app would want to communicate to the user effectively that this is what they should press if they want to set a custom goal.
The container is also in green to set it apart from the rest of the containers. Green also usually symbolises growth and life, which is fitting for the purposes of this app.
Once clicked, the user is taken to a screen with many different projects in which they can select to make an impact on with their donations.
The containers also feature illustrations in them that effectively communicate to the user what that project is targeting.
For instance, the “Help End Malnutrition” project shows a very weary looking girl with a mostly orangey brown background. The mountains also have sad faces. Orange and brown are colours usually associated with hunger and food, so this combined with the sad imagery communicates to the user that this project is about helping hungry children.
When the user has decided on which category to contribute to, they are then taken to a screen where they can set a goal for themselves using a slider.
The choice for using a slider is very appropriate as it gives the user a very flexible range on how much to contribute without overwhelming them with many options.
A simple title and description screen once the user has finalised their custom goal. This gives the user further autonomy on their goal and personalise it.
Finally, the actual donation. Users are given plenty of options on this app as to how much they can donate, from small donations of $5 to big ones like $100 — all of it going towards the respective non-profits that aid needy families.
Personally, I feel that the donations should have a wider range of options (like a slider bar) for the user to pick, as right now it seems quite rigid.
Feed Page
The feed page seems to be the social aspect of the app, letting users see how much other users have contributed to people in need.
Since this is basically a small-scale social media tab, features like a like button (indicated by a heart icon) are present that allow users to interact with other users.
I think this page further helps with the purpose of encouraging the wealthy to donate, as maybe seeing other users doing it could inspire them to do the same.
However, I think one improvement this screen could have is to highlight important bits like the amount of money or impact contributed to more easily communicate to users just how much the other users have helped.
This tab is the “Community Impact” tab, which shows all the different categories in which users could contribute to as a community.
I feel that the illustrations and icons presented in this tab help communicate to the user effectively what each impact represents, as well as the numbers below each of them showing how much contributions were on each impact.
A lot of them feature great visual grammar with their simple yet clear designs.
Clicking on one of the icons will lead the user to an info tab about its respective impact.
The hierarchy here is quite clear, leading the user’s attention seamlessly from the icon, to the name of the impact, and finally its description of how much the community has contributed to it.
Contrast between the text and background, as well as the chosen typeface also makes it easy to read.
Donations Screen
The donation tab of the app is where people actually make their donations and keep track of them.
When first starting it looks empty, with a single illustration of a perplexed girl holding an empty wallet. I feel that this imagery does encourage users to donate in a way since they’d feel the desire to fill up an otherwise empty page. However, I also think it may discourage some users from donating, thinking that the app is making fun of them.
Information Screen
This tab shows information about the app and the organisation behind it, providing the users with links to their website and socials.
As this is a text-heavy tab, most of the focus is on the typography and hierarchy. The text itself is very easy to read due to the very legible sans-serif typeface, and the hierarchy is clear with the headings being in bold.
Not much else to say about this screen — it is effective communication to the user.