Simplifying shift sign-up for end users

[adamjrice]

I received feedback from a few people that the FVS was hard to use. Most people want to get in, sign up for a couple of shifts, and get out. The current interface overloads them with information and makes it hard to focus on the information they want.

My hot take: Change the default view as follows.

1. A first pane with the text "I want to volunteer for [EVENT] in [DEPARTMENT] as a [ROLE]". Wait until a department selection is made and display available shifts in a time-sorted list below, refine by role if a role selection is made. Consolidate roles that are part of a set (eg ice cashier/pusher/slinger). Multiple instances of the same shift would be consolidated into a single line item, showing how full that shift is as "Saturday Swing Dirt Ranger (3/12)"—or do a tiny thermometer infographic if you want to get fancy. A checkbox, disabled by default to "Show shifts that overlap with my current shifts." At the bottom of this pane would be "More options…" for setting up group shifts and anything more complicated.
2. A second pane showing "My shifts" with download links.
3. A third pane, maybe, showing "Information about departments and roles"

[adamjrice]

I'm attaching a dummy file I've mocked up. I'm probably not dealing with the scrollable divs in the best possible way, but it works.

test2.html.zip

[feeling-groovy]

Alternative "golden path" ux for basic shift sign-up

[pboyd04]

So the biggest issue I see with simplifying in the manner discussed here is that it either creates a parallel sign up experience or if we eliminate the existing one we lose some of the features of showing everything available to people. Those are:

1. The volunteer wants to sign up on the same shift as their friend X and don't know the day/time off the top of their head.
2. We want people to see that say Guardians shifts are mostly empty while Ranger shifts are mostly full. Maybe the volunteer wants to sign up to be a guardian in that case?

[adamjrice]

I take your point. I think this comes down to an editorial decision: what use case do you want to optimize for?

1. If you play around with my sample HTML doc, you'll see it shows the names of people already signed up for each shift when you hover over that shift. So it is not the fastest way to find which shift your friend signed up for, but it is possible.
2. Going with David's golden-path idea, there could be an option on the signup screen (or probably an interstitial 2-option screen where you click either "I know where I want to volunteer" or "help me choose") for a "choose your own volunteering adventure" wizard à la Dahling that gives "I want to volunteer where help is needed the most" as an option.
3. There could be a "more options…" button on the shift-signup screen to take you to the god-mode view.