The Volunteer App - Increasing Volunteer Engagement Through User Experience and Behavioral Design

Sammanfattning: Sweden is one of the countries in Europe with the largest percentage of volunteers in the population. At the same time, challenges in the society are increasing. Events such as the migration crisis 2015, the wildfires 2018 and the Covid-19 pandemic have shown an expanding interest among people to contribute to society. As a private person it can be hard to know where to start when wanting to become a volunteer. In this thesis the needs and possibilities with a volunteer mediator app in Sweden is investigated. The aim is to lower the threshold for new volunteers to start and for experienced volunteers to continue their engagement. This is done through developing an app concept that aims to increase the motivation among new and current volunteers. The design process is based on the double diamond methodology focusing on the user experience. The process is user centered, putting emphasis on understanding the user needs and involving behavioral design experts. Throughout the development process focus lies on behavioral design principles for user motivation and engagement. The result of the thesis is a volunteer mediator app concept presented through a hi-fi prototype. The concept contains several features that in different ways aims to increase the user’s motivation to volunteer and to facilitate the process of finding a volunteer mission.