UX Research | Creative Community Assessment for a Nonprofit
An internship project with Capitol Creative Alliance, a Sacramento-based nonprofit that builds and supports the creative community through various initiatives. The goal was to better understand who the community members are, what their professional needs look like, and how CCA can better serve them by addressing those needs.
Methods and Their Results
To direct the research, we began with the How Might We (HMW) method, which allowed us to take a bird’s-eye view of the problem and frame key questions we ultimately wanted to answer.
The main solution, however, lay in comprehensive research that considered both qualitative and quantitative data. This included multiple surveys collected by CCA from 2021 onward, as well as insights from digital platforms such as Meta (Instagram and Facebook), Eventbrite, and LinkedIn. This approach can be referred to as Secondary Data research.
The demographic data was used to answer the question of who CCA serves directly as its community members — their age, gender, education, career level, and types of work.
Qualitative data captured through surveys helped us better understand what the audience is saying: their sentiments about various subjects, as well as their pain points, hopes, and needs.
Finally, the two pools of data were analyzed together, resulting in an extensive list of conclusions and, most importantly, actionable recommendations.
To keep our data as current as possible, we prepared and conducted a Survey.
After the secondary and survey data were processed, we focused on creating Personas and developing a User Journey. Both methods proved to be extremely insightful.
The results were shared with internal stakeholders through the report referenced above. Select insights were also shared publicly via a series of social media posts and a data sheet prepared by yours truly.
Disclaimer: all of the materials created by Alesia as a part of this project are based on the existing CCA brand and guidelines. Alesia had guidance and support from the dedicated CCA team members while working on this project.