PRODUCT DESIGN • CIVIC TECHNOLOGY
I developed a UX strategy and designed features to facilitate collaboration during the grant application process for USDR’s Federal Grant Finder tool.
I worked with the design team's USDR team to evolve the UX strategy and product offering for a Federal Grant search platform. The new direction and features connect grant seekers and encourage collaboration, leading to more competitive applications and increased funding for their communities.
Client
U.S. Digital Response
Jan 2024 — Ongoing
Role and Contributions
Product Designer
Design concept development
User testing and feedback
Design System
Team
Samuel Bendriem, Product Designer
Kathleen Henning, UX Researcher
Claire Valdivia, Product Manager
Caitlin Winner, Product Lead
Design Process
Discovery
Problem
The USDR Grant Finder Tool helps state and local governments discover and manage grant opportunities through a robust search interface, filters, and application status tracking.
Ongoing conversations with partners and customers indicated this core value was not competitive enough. Partners further hoped to have more collaborative grant applicants within their network to have more competitive applications, resource sharing, and increased funding.
Partnerships strengthen applications, but grant-seeking teams face barriers when expanding their networks. It was also unclear what collaboration meant in regards to the Grant Finder tool.
Stakeholder Interviews
To learn more about these barriers, USDR conducted stakeholder interviews with the two primary personas involved as part of grant-seeking teams:
- Grant Coordinator: Grant Coordinators are responsible for finding opportunities and facilitating the grant application process for applicants.
- Grant Applicants: Grant applicants participate in an application process on behalf of their team. Although applicants benefit from collaboration and shared grant applications, they may not have enough time or resources to do so.
Alignment
Barrriers to Networking
We synthesized our findings into 3 core barriers to networking:
1. Coordinators lack visibility into network activity, preventing them from facilitating appropriate connections.
2. Applicants struggle in finding expertise and support when starting out, adding to an already overwhelming process.
3. Uncertainty on who is available and who is a credible fit means teams remain siloed and fall behind schedule.
Fig. 01: Barriers to collaboration diagram.
Design North Star + Guiding Policies
“Supporting collaboration” inside the Federal Grant Finder is about finding and creating opportunities for collaboration through transparency.
Our goal is to help grant-seekers find and share relevant opportunities, connect with new and existing partners, and align towards collaboration—thereby strengthening applications and increasing funding for their communities.
01
Interest over Intention
Focus efforts on showing interest in a grant to generate conversation (as opposed to the intention/status of one’s application).
02
People over Tools
Shift the platform from a search tool to a collaboration space. Make the platform more personable and increase opportunities to connect.
03
Traction leads to action
Provide data features for coordinators and teams to identify opportunities for support and applications.
Interest over Intention
Fig. 02: The Follow Grant feature allows participants to indicate their interest and availability in a grant application.
Following a grant +leaving a note
Our collaboration tool within the Grants Finder encourages applicants to indicate interest in a grant, adding them to a list of available collaborators. A free text box allows applicants to include information about their team's availability, needs, and resources. Lastly, the provided email contact information allows applicants to reach out and begin the collaboration process.
Fig. 03: Mobile screens of the grant detail page.
Iterations
Figs. 04+05: Grant collaboration concept: 'Mark as Interested' (left) and adding contextual information (right).
Figs. 06 +07: Grant collaboration concept: Changing the list to dropdown (left) and allowing applicants to leave free-text comments (right).
People over Tools
Encourage connection through a more human interface.
The next design improvement concerned the avatar components in the design system. My goal was to make the platform more human and to encourage connection. I started by adding email addresses to avatar components across the platform and checked with stakeholders to see how appropriate this would be. The idea is that if emails are visible, then people will be more comfortable reaching out.
Fig. 08: Original avatar component.
Fig. 09: Adding email addresses.
Fig. 10: Highlighting emails and adding roles.
Fig. 11: Adding profile photos and hover modal.
I explored highlighting email addresses and user roles but landed on a hover modal with additional information to keep the component compact. Lastly, I wanted to implement actual photos for profiles. Even though this adds complexity to onboarding, it's ultimately an easy way to make the platform feel familiar and interactions more human.
Directories + profiles make collaboration accessible.
In addition to the avatar changes, I designed simple profile pages for both users and teams. Users can share info about them, as well as who they work for and what their role is, and additional links.
The platform's people and team directory pages increase access to new organizations and people within their network. Coordinators and applicants can find teams based on interest areas and grants or find contact information about someone they met offline or through communities of practice meetings.
Traction leads to action
Fig. 12: Active Grants dashboard gives coordinators an overview of traction and activity across the network.
Visible network activity helps coordinators identify opportunities.
The platform dashboard provides a list of active and popular grants so that coordinators can see what their applicants are researching and quickly review notes and requests. By increasing visibility around their network, coordinators are supported in offering resources and guidance around collaboration and team-building for applications and seeing the overall engagement across the platform.
Outcomes
The Grant Finder tool has evolved from a resource for finding grant opportunities, which continues to solve a fundamental pain point, to a collaborative platform where users can maximize their network connections and provide support, leading to more competitive applications.
Ongoing testing with networks in Maryland and Nevada, as well as with regional coalitions, received positive reviews from our stakeholders. In unveiling these new features, users estimate this will increase available grant opportunities and provide thousands of dollars to their communities in award funding.
01
Increased user engagement across the platform
• 3x increase in grant detail page views over six weeks.
• 70% conversion rate on shared grant emails to grant detail page.
• 82 notes left on 27 grants in the first six weeks after launch.
02
Market differentiation in the Federal Grants domain
USDR recognized an opportunity to foster networking and collaboration within grant-seeking networks, establishing a unique value proposition for state and local governments facing challenges in coordinating joint applications and overcoming the siloed culture of grant processes.
03
Increased funds for communities from more competitive applications.
Qualitative and quantitative feedback indicates that USDR is effectively building grant-seeking networks that will enable more competitive applications, leading to increased community funding. Ongoing improvement efforts will further enhance the platform as USDR expands its reach, aiming to serve a growing number of state and local governments.