01 Solution
Backer User Journey
The users on Coop Crowdfunding consist of 'Backers' and 'Project Owners'. Backers are those that support sustainable projects by donating money. Project Owners are passionate entrepreneurs that create and facilitate the projects.
Through our research, we discovered that users are passionate about sustainability and want to contribute beyond just financial support. Inspired by this, we designed a service that allows users to offer their time and skills, fostering a stronger community and increasing project success.
Below showcases how a backer onboards, creates a users and then a project
Project Owner User Journey
The users on Coop Crowdfunding consist of 'Backers' and 'Project Owners'. Backers are those that support sustainable projects by donating money. Project Owners are passionate entrepreneurs that create and facilitate the projects.
Through our research, we discovered that users are passionate about sustainability and want to contribute beyond just financial support. Inspired by this, we designed a service that allows users to offer their time and skills, fostering a stronger community and increasing project success.
Below showcases how a backer onboards, creates a users and then a project
02 Process
Eco system mapping
To kick off the project, we mapped the COOP Crowdfunding ecosystem and explored the broader crowdfunding landscape to understand how the service worked and how it compared to similar platforms. We analyzed COOP Crowdfunding alongside platforms such as Kickstarter and IDA Crowdfunding through digital ethnography, examining their features, user interactions, and service models.
This helped us understand that backers fund sustainable projects through COOP Crowdfunding, which transfers the money to project owners. We also learned that project owners can apply for loans through Lendino (facilitated by COOP) and offer rewards through the COOP Crowdfunding webshop to encourage financial contributions.
Comparing COOP Crowdfunding with other platforms revealed an opportunity to strengthen user interaction. While the existing service focused primarily on enabling backers to support projects financially through donations, loans, and rewards, we saw potential to expand the experience by giving users additional ways to contribute to the sustainable projects they cared about.
Initia interviews with backers
Our first round of interviews were conducted with three backers. We explored what motivated them to support sustainable projects, and found new openings that could result in more value for them. From these interviews we generated themes that ran across our data:
When can we meet?
How can I help?
Stories drive motivation
Co-design Workshop with Project Owners (POs)
After having found openings that could help motivate the backers to support more projects, we conducted a co-design workshop with the project owners to see their side. Here, we explored what they value regarding community and how it manifests in the physical and digital world, while also exploring possible future states of the crowdfunding platform. To ensure a red-thread in our project, we explored our findings from the backers. To gain an overview of our findings, we developed themes:
Community is physical
More interaction with followers
Stories drive motivation
Concept test with backers and project owners
Building on these insights, we created our first prototype in Figma. The concept bridged the digital and physical worlds by enabling backers to contribute more than just money - they could now actively support project owners with their time and skills, fostering a stronger sense of community.
To evaluate our service concept, we invited a backer, and a project owner whom we had previously met to test our prototype. Our evaluation involved a think aloud test, where they explored our prototype while vocalizing their thoughts. Subsequently, we conducted semi-structured interviews, asking questions such as: 'What do you see as the positives and negatives of this service?' and 'Is there anything you feel is lacking?'. Additionally, we inquired about the emotions they might anticipate before, during, and after interactions with a PO or a backer, aiding in the development of our final user journey map.
Concept test insights
Overall the participants reacted positively to this new service concept. When we sat down with them some mentioned:
“It [the service] could give me a feeling of being involved in things, which I think could be exciting when it comes to a lot of the different projects.”
The PO mentioned that it could heighten his competencies and skills, stating:
“I would like to use it!”.
However, there were still important aspects that were highlighted as missing from our prototype. The PO emphasized the value of being able to match with other POs for idea brainstorming and expressed interest in matching with and assisting aspiring POs, similar to the help received from COOP Crowdfunding when starting projects. The super-backer stressed the importance of aligning expectations early with the POs for the service to succeed:
03 Service Design Methods
To better understand how our service fit into the Coop Crowdfunding eco system we applied a few more service design methods
User Journey Mapping
To better understand the end-to-end user experience, we created a user journey map. This helped us identify key touchpoints, pain points, and opportunities across the service, ensuring our design decisions addressed the moments that mattered most to users.
Value exchange
The new service transforms the value exchange from purely financial to personal. By enabling backers to contribute their time and skills, it creates more meaningful interactions between backers and project owners, fostering a stronger emotional connection to the project. These relationships have the potential to spark new ideas, encourage long-term collaborations, and strengthen the community around sustainable initiatives.
04 Learnings
I learned the importance of thinking holistically about service design. By deeply analyzing our user research, we crafted a solution that delivered greater value to the users and that seperated CC from its competitors. However, we faced the challenge of managing client expectations — CC initially wanted to focus on digital features, while our insights showed that the real impact was in creating meaningful physical interactions. Successfully aligning these perspectives was a key learning experience, demonstrating the value of balancing user needs with client goals.
Our iterative design process was key to refining the service. We continuously gathered feedback through workshops, interviews, and a broader survey. However, the survey included all entrepreneurs, which was slightly out of scope for our specific focus on sustainable projects. This taught me the importance of aligning research methods closely with project goals. While the survey provided valuable insights, it also highlighted the need for targeted research to ensure we’re gathering the most relevant data for informed decision-making.
