Case Study

Personalized Acts of Kindness

The Client

Do Me A Favour Buddy (DMAFB) is a UK-based organization founded by Don Diffang and co-led by a small team of scientific and business experts. It was inspired by Don’s personal experience with a stranger's kindness during a personal housing crisis. This led him to explore the science of kindness as a clinical researcher. DMAFB's mission is to democratize the experience of kindness through AI-powered personalization, aiming to improve mental health and overall well-being for its users.

Don Diffang, founder of Do Me A Favour Buddy

The Challenge

The core group at DMAFB developed ways to personalize acts of kindness, but they lacked a tangible platform to implement this technology.

My team’s task was to transform this research-backed concept into a user-friendly mobile app that would help socially-conscious individuals overcome barriers to performing acts of kindness.

Collaboration & My Roles

As the Project Manager and UX Generalist on this project, I worked with a team of four designers, researchers and writers to create a mobile application that helps users engage in meaningful acts of kindness through AI-powered personalization.

  • As a project manager, I provided leadership in organizing & coordinating the team of UX specialists, helping to ensure that there was good communication and organized documentation. I also helped to ensure that essential tasks were clearly understood and completed on time.

  • As a UX generalist, I provided direct input, support and assistance with everyone’s work.

Users & Key Features of the App

Users

  • Socially conscious individuals who want to make a positive impact

  • People who struggle to find time for acts of kindness

  • Users who have difficulty identifying those in need

  • Individuals seeking meaningful ways to perform acts of kindness

Key Features

  • AI-powered personalization system that matches users with appropriate acts of kindness based on their psychological profile

  • Gamified progress tracking using a plant growth metaphor

  • Team-based interface for community connection

  • Organizational interface for implementing kindness initiatives in workplace settings

  • A gamified system using plant growth metaphors to track progress

  • Nature-inspired design elements based on user preferences

Usability Testing

In our first iteration, usability testing revealed several critical areas for improvement:

  • Users needed better context for personal questions during onboarding

  • Navigation issues, particularly with the Home button functionality

  • Lack of clear guidance for performing and logging acts of kindness

  • Difficulties in tracking progress due to navigation issues

We addressed these challenges in a second iteration by:

  • Implementing clearer navigation systems

  • Creating more intuitive user guidance

Impact

The final product successfully transformed DMAFB's research-backed concept into a workable prototype that:

  • Provides personalized act-of-kindness suggestions based on psychological profiles

  • Offers opportunities to strengthen community relationships

  • Enables progress tracking through an engaging interface

  • Supports both individual users and organizational implementations

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