A few weeks ago Kiva participated in a UX Boot Camp with Cooper, a design strategy firm based in San Francisco. This was an opportunity to gather a group of talented technology professionals together and have them put a fresh set of eyes on one of the challenges Kiva has observed over the past year.
The Boot Camp centered around the experience of choosing loans to support on Kiva. The task of selecting one or two people out of the thousands of borrowers that are fundraising on Kiva can be daunting. Deciding where your limited money will have the most impact can sometimes be an overwhelming struggle, to the point that it prevents some people from lending. This quote from one of our lenders sums up the sentiment:
“I have to stop myself from continuing to scroll down the page to look at other stories. I wish I could lend money to so many of them, but I could only choose one for now :(”
At the end of the Boot Camp participants pitched us a collection of new ideas. These included everything from helping lenders understand the impact they’re making, to how Kiva can connect lending activity to current events. Our team left energized from the enthusiasm of the group.
Going forward we’ll be mixing the ideas generated at the Boot Camp with recent brainstorms at Kiva. This will serve as the foundation for an initiative aimed at improving the way lenders find loans on Kiva. Over the next few months we’ll be conducting a number of experiments – including testing new features, running surveys and prototyping new designs – as we evaluate many of these ideas.
Ultimately, we’re looking to you to help us understand how these ideas affect how you choose borrowers to support on Kiva. We're excited to learn from you during this process and thank you in advance for any feedback you share with us over the next few months.
