Click on the link to access the audio and transcript for our video about Collaborate.

Collaborate wanted a more user-friendly platform for volunteers and organisations to connect as they were using ad hoc pages and Google Forms. They didn’t have the resources to make this happen themselves and were seeking pro bono help. We answered that call. 

We suggested their platform would be best expressed as a progressive web app, which works on both desktop and mobile. To make the best use of the 14 developers who were volunteering their time, we recommended holding a weekend-long hackathon.

We separated the app’s capabilities into three deliverables:

1. Volunteers can create an account, view and apply for opportunities by location, which notifies the organisation, and Collaborate can manage opportunities for organisations.
   
2. Organisations can register accounts, create and manage opportunities.
   
3. Communication within the app between volunteers and organisations.
   

As a MVP, we aimed to deliver chunks one and two by the end of the weekend.

Designing, building and testing at lightspeed

For this project to be successful we knew we had to work super fast and efficiently.

Luckily, Collaborate had a basic prototype for our designer to use as a starting point, which were used to create wireframes. Test scripts were set up and wireframes reviewed by our front-end team. Design in Sketch followed. A basic prototype was created in Invision so the front- and back-end teams could begin work. While the UI was being designed, our test engineer changed parts of the wireframes to make sure they corresponded with what we could build.

Once the UI designs were finished and reviewed by our front-end developers the wireframe designs were replaced in the Invision prototype. These were then imported to Zeplin so our front-ends could see the styles used.

This rapid fire collaboration and back and forth was the norm from Friday evening through to Sunday afternoon way.