CharityLOL

There’s a thing I like to do twice a year. I like to temporarily pause my vices in the name of charity. Its like Stoptober, with a twist. (Shout out to my design peeps who love the term ‘with a twist’).

The premise is simple. Rather than doing something for charity, do less. Give something up. Quit smoking, quit drinking, quit eating sweets, quit PSLs and then take all the money you’d ordinarily spend on cigarettes/beer/cupcakes/coffee/whatever and sling it to a charity of your choice. Not only does it help those in need, it also shows your concerned family members that your vice of choice is not a problem and you really can quit whenever you want.

So why am I blogging about this? To waft my smugness in your faces, of course. I’m a Good Person™ and look at all the Good™ I am doing.

Just kidding. I’m a terrible person and we all know that.

I’m actually blogging about my yearly sobriety sprints because I’m frustrated that there isn’t an app for this already. I was sitting down with a pen and paper trying to calculate how much money I have ‘saved’ from not drinking thus far and I got annoyed at the inefficiency. I ended up calculating a rough estimate of $4 a day out of pure laziness. Don’t get me wrong, $4 x 31 days= $124 which is a sizable chunk of change to donate, but now that I figured out the sum I find myself a) frustrated at the inaccuracy (type A people of the world unite!) and b) if the dollar outcome is predetermined, why not just donate the cash and call it a day?

I naturally turned to technology for help, but my app store searches came up with nada. So what did I do? I made some wireframe mock ups of what I envision such an app to be. I’m uploading my sketches here in the hopes some brilliant engineers will want to collaborate on making this app a reality.

Don’t get me wrong, I’m under no pretense of greatness here. I know that ideas are like assholes, everyone has 4, but I think an app like this could be successful. It’s got a lusory, competitive, tongue-in-cheek aesthetic which could make donating to charity fun. High horses not included.

Without further blathering, here are my sketches with annotations. The sketches are funny and convey the form/feel/aesthetic of the app. The annotations are dry and very ‘Ashley’.  I’m sorry.

Note that CharityLOL is a working title.

Also note scrollbars appear on screen to indicate extra content. As this is developed for mobile, actual scrollbars will not be needed.

Image 1: Sign up screen.

The sign up screen allows the user to: set a location (to access local charities/ food and drink databases); set a start and end date for their ‘marathon’; and choose what they are giving up.

Scrolling down, the user is invited to either input average consumption and price (alcohol is used here as an example, but it could be cigarettes, sweets, etc…) or use the app’s database and barcode scanner. Like apps such as Fitbit, CharityLOL will have access to a user-generated database of consumer products. The idea behind this is to give users motivation to stay the course during high-pressure moments. For example, when at a restaurant with friends the user might be tempted to order a beer, but with the app they can opt instead to document the drink they turned down. This rewards the user for saying no, and gains more money for the charity in question.

The application will be tied to the user’s bank account/credit card for daily donations in much the same way many mobile games require a card on file for in-app purchases. Think of the daily donation as an in-app purchase which goes right to the charities they support. This is designed so that if the user terminates the application or stops using it charities will still receive the funds earned up until that point.

Image 2: Choosing charities/ daily log-in screens.

 

Integral to this app’s functionality are partnerships with local charities, which is shown on the left screen above. This is so the user is able to see the impact their donations have firsthand, and also this is how CharityLOL will be monetised- but not for profit. Following JustGiving’s 5% model, a charge is applied to charities who sign up to receive donations which is then re-invested into running and maintaining the application.

Whenever a user logs in to check how much they have given or make an entry, they will be greeted with a progression screen. The progression screen will show how much they have given, the charities they have helped, and the number of days they have gone without their favourite vice. Options to share progression on social media are offered to encourage the user to reach their goal.

Image 3: End screen.

Upon the completion of the user-identified time period, a congratulatory screen will appear which summarises the user’s experience and awards them with an achievement. The user then has the option of sharing their success on social media, which will allow congratulations and additionally spread word of the app’s existence.

Image 4: Fail state.

As this is not a game, there is no real fail state, but there is negative feedback to the user. Providing negative user feedback is important to encourage completion of the set timeline. It is also important to ensure there is value to the app’s badges. In the above example, the user would become ineligible for the October alcohol-free badge until next year, but they would still be eligible for other, smaller milestones such as Two Weeks without a Drink badge.

And that’s it. That’s the mock up I have. Who wants to make it?

Until next time,

Ashley

Sidenote 1: Students (who I assume are the bulk of my readership, lol) might be wondering why I didn’t use a game design document to illustrate the app’s functionality. Good question.  The short answer is: because its a UI wireframe. The long answer is: I wanted a clean, easy to read, direct depiction of the app’s UI without much detail about what the user does. There is no game design verb here. Mostly the user clicks boxes. Thus, I need to show which boxes the user clicks- not the experience of clicking. Make sense? If not, email me.

Sidenote 2: Thanks to Roger Altizer for introducing me to Basalmiq. And generally mentoring me.

Sidenote 2: The feature photo of this post has nothing to do with the content. Also, it came from The Best and Worst Photo Blog and even though it was labelled for re-use on Google images, I thought I should give them a shoutout.

Sidenote 3: This work is licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International License. To view a copy of this license, visit http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/.