Samaritan's Purse: Sharing Christmas
2018
A mobile app that builds a gift shoebox for a child in need for Operation Christmas Child.
Learn more about this cause on their website.
2018
A mobile app that builds a gift shoebox for a child in need for Operation Christmas Child.
Learn more about this cause on their website.
Samaritan’s Purse is a nondenominational evangelical Christian organization providing spiritual and physical aid to hurting people around the world. Since 1970, the organization has helped victims of war, poverty, natural disasters, disease, and famine with the purpose of sharing God’s love through support and service.
Operation Christmas Child is a seasonal program that sends shoeboxes filled with gifts to children in need all over the world. Volunteers may physically pack a shoe box with gifts or they may now "build" a shoebox online or with the mobile app. I was fortunate to be part of the web and mobile app designs.
Observe client and end users as they created shoeboxes physically to understand the workflow so that we could replicate this flow online.
Map the proposed workflow on whiteboard until we had an approved version.
Sketch a UI that represented the desired user flow with standard UI components for web and mobile.
Collaborate with the designer and developers from initial through approved designs.
Test final prototypes with users and adjust based on observations and feedback.
Before any pixels were drawn, the team worked through the existing in-person shoebox-building process by hand — sketching dashboard concepts and mapping the full "build a box" flow on paper to capture every decision point a volunteer would need to make online.
Dashboard
Build a box flow
From those early sketches, the team built out a complete, branded mobile experience — from the opening dashboard through age selection, gift selection, personalization, and checkout — keeping every screen simple, colorful, and true to the warmth of the in-person Operation Christmas Child experience.
Dashboard
Select the child's age
Select gifts
Gift suggestion
Add a note
Finalize purchase
Simplified Workflow: Reduced the box-building process to 5 clear steps, which could be completed start-to-finish in under 5 minutes.
Brand Experience: Delivered a fully branded, playful digital experience that mirrored the joy of the in-person shoebox-packing tradition.
Program Participation: Contributed to a 25% increase in online shoebox participation following launch.
Expanded Reach: Mobile-first design opened participation to donors building boxes from their phones, extending the program beyond physical collection events and school drives.