Save Cantonese
Creating an internal roster platform to automate member activity tracking and optimize workflows
TIMELINE
Oct - Nov 2025 (5 Weeks)
TEAM
3 Leads, 4 Designers, 7 Devs
ROLE
Product Designer
SKILLS
Information Architecture, Design Systems, Data Visualization
CONTEXT
Save Cantonese is a nonprofit dedicated to preserving, promoting, and expanding access to the Cantonese language and culture. The organization supports community members, language learners, and advocates through volunteer-led initiatives, educational resources, and campaigns aimed at keeping the language alive and vibrant across digital spaces. I served as a Product Designer on this team through Nova, Tech for Good.
Save Cantonese has chapters and volunteers all around the world!
THE PROBLEM
As SaveCanto grows, managing volunteer data has become a repetitive & slow process
Currently, Save Cantonese staff manages its growing network of volunteers manually across Slack, Zoom, and Google Sheets. This workflow is often slow, repetitive, and prone to error, requiring volunteer managers to spend hours each week cross-checking data just to track community engagement.
Furthermore, because inactive members are not easily identifiable, they remain in communication channels, which clutters the workspace and potentially pose digital security risks for the nonprofit.
HOW MIGHT WE
centralize and automate activity tracking for SaveCantonese managers so they can easily identify inactive volunteers and optimize their workflows?
RESEARCH
Digging Deeper through Stakeholder Interviews
My team interviewed our stakeholders at Save Cantonese to evaluate their current workflows and their opinions on Google Sheets, which is their current method of volunteer management.
They said...
They wanted an easy way to view flagged volunteers deemed "inactive."
They appreciated the "density" of information in spreadsheets.
COMPETITIVE ANALYSIS
We looked at competitors to see what they did well and how we could improve our UX
We analyzed several operational platforms, including what Save Canto already used, to understand how they handled data, information architecture, and how we can inform our own design strategy.
Monday.com: uses visual boards where you can attach screenshots of competitor apps and track your research progress in a clean and organized way, but built around clunky boxes and cards
Google Sheets: simple grid layout lets you put a massive amount of information on one screen, making it easy to compare side-by-side, but not great at handling information outside of text or numbers (e.g. images)
INITIAL DESIGNS
Creating Two Main Views
We started by designing two key pages: a dashboard view and a volunteer view. The dashboard allowed the managers to get a quick glance of the biggest red flags that needed to be addressed. The volunteer view was allowed the managers to see all the volunteers with filtering and sorting options.
USABILITY TESTING AND FEEDBACK
We conducted some usability tests with the volunteer managers
We received feedback that instead of having the side panel showing the detailed view of a specific volunteer, the website should act more like an upgraded Google Sheets. We learned a lesson that when designing for users, it’s important to consider what they are already used to to avoid cognitive overload.
Our stakeholders also expressed that they wanted to use their existing design system. We accommodated them and advocated for some color and font changes.
FINAL DESIGNS
Volunteer Management Dashboard
After multiple iterations and implementing the feedback we received, we completed our designs and prepared them for handoff!
THANK YOU FOR MAKING IT TO THE END! :)
Reflections 💭
This was an onboarding project with Nova, Tech for Good and I learned so much about my peers! I learned how to communicate effectively with my team and stakeholders and how to advocate for our design choices. I also greatly improved my Figma and prototyping skills. I couldn’t have asked for a better team to start my journey with Nova!