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From Messengers to Metrics: Crafting the Cleanspace Admin Core
Unifying fragmented processes and empowering volunteer growth through strategic admin tools in a bootstrapped startup environment.
Project Context & Problem:
As part of my in-depth product design course, I joined an eco-volunteer startup in its initial Proof-of-Concept (PoC) stage.
The startup aimed to motivate volunteers, particularly for hard-to-reach clean-up sites like mountains and hiking trails, by offering gifts. Founders had previously tested this idea using improvised methods - instagram accounts (one of the founders is an eco-influencer with 150K+ followers), notes app and a messenger. The high response rate to eco-friendly or handcrafted gifts confirmed the need for a scalable digital solution for future projects.
The long-term goal was to sell this solution internationally, facilitating clean-up efforts in challenging locations globally.
My Role & Influence:
The project was divided into 3 user-role parts (admin, volunteer, business). I was a key member of a 3-person design team focused on the admin user role.
While we collaboratively structured and executed our research, my unique contribution involved defining the Jobs-to-be-Done and Value Proposition Statement, driving the synthesis of user insights, including preparing quote categorizations for mental models and defining metrics that can and should be monitored in service blueprint workshop.
This highly collaborative environment, and the need to align across multiple user roles with other teams, significantly sharpened my approach to both research methods and cross-functional teamwork, preparing me for complex product challenges.
User Pains We Worked to Solve:
Based on the Lean UX framework, we identified these obstacles for effective volunteer verification and evaluation:
Disorganized Information Flow: Volunteer data arrived chaotically through various social media channels, making tracking difficult.
Scattered Admin Data: Existing admin records (who received gifts, who didn't) were disorganized, primarily stored in social media chats.
Potential for Abuse: Concerns existed about dishonest volunteers misusing the system.
No Sorting by Work Complexity: There was no way to sort information by the difficulty of the cleaning work performed.
My Challenges in the Process:
PoC Uncertainty: The startup's PoC stage meant uncertainty, vague ideas, and constant change. Our proactive briefing of co-founders stimulated clearer vision and ideas from them.
Divided Teams: Initially, three teams (admin, volunteers, business) worked in opposite directions. We held joint meetings to share results and discussed how to seamlessly combine the three user roles, ensuring benefits for each role and the startup. The Service Blueprint workshop was pivotal; it allowed us to integrate our services and clarify cross-functional interactions, ensuring a unified user experience.
Undefined Team Responsibilities: Within our 3-person admin team, a strong sense of individual responsibility initially made it hard to balance tasks, especially with new research methods. But understanding how it influences the quality of our research methods, I had to learn more in-depth to listen, to accept, to share, to let go and to enjoy the work in a strong team of professionals.
Difficulty Finding Respondents: I quickly found that volunteer organizations in Ukraine are rarely well-funded, leading to admins having unique responsibilities. User interviews, intended to find pains for the CleanSpace admin role, revealed a much wider variety of problems and consistently limited tools for solutions. This raised additional questions for co-founders, ultimately clarifying the long-term vision.
Business & User Needs Research & Insights:
Our work primarily focused on discovery and research. As the project was bootstrapped, we decided the product would be hosted on Notion Builder - a cheap, adaptable, functional, and scalable solution for early stages.
Hypothesis Generation:
We first briefed co-founders. Using a Lean UX framework, we then collectively developed hypotheses to guide later research. This step clarified startup’s measurable goals, expectations, and operational mechanics..
Synthesizing Insights:
With only 3 interviews for a niche user persona, we analyzed the extensive information. I synthesized unique user experiences into common groups, and we applied the Mental Model framework. This allowed us to extract shared pains and gains, making possible solutions quite obvious.
*The interviews were conducted in Ukrainian and are presented in the original language, with a few translated as examples.
Deep Admin Needs:
Leveraging my expertise, I then used JTBD and Value Proposition Canvas to deeply understand admin needs. This built important assumptions about the admin persona, guiding our user interviews and what to discover.
Defining the Scope & Process:
Then It was time to define the scope of work (functionality). Based on interviews and created mental models, we defined the project's scope by comparing the user persona's current scenario against their ideal. This gave us direction. Building on this, we used the CJM canvas to map out all insights into a clear flow, highlighting crucial intersection points with other user roles. We then explored these intersections deeply during the collaborative Service Blueprint workshop.
Service Blueprint Workshop:
This was my favorite part. It sorted out where what data bases should be created (which were perfect, because building in Notion Builder requires custom database creation). It also combined all three CJMs into one flow, synchronizing all teams to 100%. Furthermore, it made clear what exact metrics we could and should monitor.
Efficient Prototyping:
To optimize time and budget, we executed a 'Frankenstein' approach instead of traditional wireframes. This proved to be the most efficient way to draft pages for the Notion builder given our limited resources.
Result:
To test our hypotheses, we defined key metrics, set a 12-day deadline, and launched the site.
The second iteration lasted 3 months. The initial release was a beta test with a close circle. One month after the first test, co-founders announced the product to their followers, significantly increasing product attention.
Get in touch
I’m always interested in exploring new opportunities, collaborating, or exchanging ideas with like-minded individuals. Feel free to email me or connect on LinkedIn if you'd like to discuss an open product designer or ux/ui designer position or a potential project.