In the process of Immerse, we decided to forego the traditional user persona. Instead, we’ve generated a user journey map to highlight key moments throughout M&P’s standing donation intake system. Because this intake system is highly specific to the two users (our community partners at M&P), this user journey map provides perspective into the tendencies and decision-making processes of these two individuals, as opposed to those of a more generalized audience or demographic.

An example user scenario:

Ahshia, one of the employees, has just returned to the warehouse after overseeing a pop-up event at an art gallery in Los Angeles. Ahshia finds that two paper bags, full of donated items, are sitting on the front desk. Preoccupied with settling back in after a long weekend, she takes the bags, walks to the back area, and drops them onto a disorganized pile of unsorted donation bags. The bag goes untouched for the next three weeks, as it’s slowly buried beneath subsequent donations. By the time Ahshia has found a block of time suitable for donation sorting, the pile has grown to an unruly mess, and it becomes far too much of a hassle to deal with.

Situations such as this example user scenario lead to a massive backlog of donations that go unattended for long periods of time, an issue that persists at the epicenter of our problem space.