Case study: Volunteer service clout for Doordash
By: Shawn Suzuki
Tags: Case Study, UX Design, UI Design, Product Design, DoorDash

VSC GIF

“I want to help out in my community.”

I’ve been dashing with Doordash for years and I know in the last couple of years, they started Project Dash, where they pick up and deliver food for places like homeless shelters in the area. As a dasher, I got paid for my time to deliver the food to them.

It’s great that Doordash is helping the community, but I also wanted to help out in my community. Come to find out, other dashers said they would do the same if given the opportunity.

I came up with a Volunteer Service addition to the dasher app. This option would allow dashers to opt into volunteering their time to help deliver groceries to families in need.

Research

Photo by Joel Muniz on Unsplash

During this covid pandemic, more and more families are in need of help from food banks. In fact, 1 in 4 Americans now relies on food from food banks in their community to get their groceries.

Most of these Americans can drive to the food bank and get their food, but there are some families without transportation and will have to lug it on the bus, train, or in their arms. This also puts them at a higher risk of infection.

Currently, food banks do not deliver. There are other programs like meals on wheels that deliver food to disabled or senior citizens.

Problem

How might we integrate a volunteer program into our current dasher platform?

Solution

Photo by Tom Cochereau on Unsplash

Those of us who do food delivery, know there are peak and off-peak times for delivery. There are somewhere between 2 and 5 hours during the day, where we just sit in the car and hope to get an order.

Dashers can opt-in to participate in Volunteer Service Clout, where they will receive delivery orders from food banks to homes in their current delivery area during non-peak times. They also build their own clout around volunteering via a ranking system and easy social sharing.

Who

BG photos by Luke Ellis-Craven & Logan Fisher on Unsplash

Goals & Impact

Photo by Larisa Birta on Unsplash

Volunteer Service Clout is designed to accomplish 2 main goals. The first is to help families who are not mobile and need groceries from food banks, by having them delivered. The second is to enable dashers to volunteer in their community and earn their own charity clout.

Having a volunteer program for Doordash will continue to build on the community impact already established by Project Dash and take it a step further by directly helping families in those communities.

Design

Initial Design Concepts

Volunteer Recognition Cards to share on Socials

AB Testing

AB Testing Designs

Design Prototype

Volunteer Service Clout Prototype

Final Thoughts

I learned a lot about the voice of the copy and the importance of the look and feel of the social share cards. Since this is a volunteer thing, the look and feel had to match it. I also learned that good feedback on a design doesn’t necessarily mean it’s the right direction and to explore more. Having different feeling concepts when doing a design review provides much better guidance.

I hope Doordash really does implement a program like this in the future. Talking to other dashers, it’s something we would find deeply rewarding doing.