Habitat for Humanity is a global nonprofit organization dedicated to building safe, affordable housing through community partnership and volunteer-driven projects.
Their website connects volunteers with local build projects. However, users struggle to find and register for nearby volunteer opportunities due to fragmented navigation, early account requirements, and unclear feedback after sign-up.
This redesign focused on creating a clear, local-first, low-friction volunteering experience while modernizing the site's visual system and homepage structure.
Jump to prototypes ↓Users experienced difficulty discovering and committing to local volunteer opportunities.
We began with initial user research to understand how volunteers search for opportunities and what barriers prevent them from signing up.
We conducted a survey focused specifically on the current Habitat website. Participants were asked about their experience finding volunteer opportunities, clarity of navigation, and whether they felt confident committing to events through the platform.
While many participants described the website as informative and trustworthy, several noted that the interface felt visually overwhelming, with "too many links," "too much going on," and difficulty focusing on specific tasks. We concluded that users have an expectation for a calm, structured experience where primary actions are immediately recognizable.
To expand upon this, I conducted usability testing with 9 participants, giving them the task of signing up for a local volunteer opportunity in San Diego on the existing Habitat website.
Usability testing session — participants given task on existing Habitat site
After observing their process from start-to-finish and asking for feedback afterwards, these are the results we found.
From this process, we identified the three main pain points that would guide our redesign.
Navigation is split between national and local affiliate sites.
Volunteering entry points are buried in the site's hierarchy.
Account creation is required just to browse opportunities.
How can we simplify navigation so volunteers can quickly find and sign up for opportunities?
To start off, we mapped the original end-to-end volunteering journey to identify friction points.
To better visualize our redesigned user flow and brainstorm in preparation for our low-fidelity designs, we each made sketches of the updated interface.
The sketches I made!
Then, we created lo-fi wireframes to iterate on interaction patterns before visual design.
We combined the best ideas from our sketches into simple wireframes to test layout, navigation, and user flow. This helped us quickly spot problem areas in the volunteer discovery experience and adjust the structure before moving into high-fidelity design.
Scroll to explore the early wireframes!
Building on the lo-fi wireframes, we crafted an interactive high-fidelity prototype.
A clickable prototype was built to simulate the end-to-end volunteer journey, allowing us to test interactions, navigation, and overall usability before finalizing the solution.
Scroll to explore the hi-fi wireframes!
With the prototype in place, we re-tested the same 9 participants to evaluate whether the redesigned experience reduced friction and improved discovery of volunteer opportunities.
The results confirmed that the redesigned flow significantly reduced friction and improved the discoverability of volunteer opportunities.
We then used participant feedback to make targeted refinements that would improve clarity and confidence in the final prototype.
The final redesigned experience!
View the full clickable prototype ↗
Our redesign thoroughly addresses all 3 of the original pain points.
Navigation is split between national and local affiliate sites. ✓ Navigation is contained within a single site.
Volunteering entry points are buried in the site's hierarchy. ✓ Volunteer entry points surface clearly in the primary navigation.
Account creation is required just to browse opportunities. ✓ Users can browse freely without an account.
In addressing these pain points, users reached sign-up 78% faster, and all participants (9/9) indicated greater satisfaction with the redesigned flow.
Looking Back & Moving Forward
This was my first end-to-end UX project, from research through prototyping and testing. It showed me how user feedback drives stronger design decisions, and that clarity often matters more than visual polish.
Working in a team taught me to stay flexible when roles shifted and members stepped away, and it showed me how important communication and shared responsibility are in design work.
So what's next?
