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Check out this other case study, where I give users the power to dictate their notetaking process on Goodnotes, using custom toolbars based on their needs. Fun fact: It was my first case study ever, so it’s pretty special to me, as it opened up the wondrous world of design to me
Goodnotes App: A Case Study
Personalising the digital note-taking process.
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CURaise Fundraising Management Platform: Fundraising Made Better.
TEAM
3 Product Designers 2 Product Managers 3 Developers
ROLE
Product Designer
TIMELINE
Feb - May 2025 (4 months)
SKILLS AND TOOLS
Product thinking UX Writing Design System 0→1 Information Architecture
BACKGROUND
What is CURaise
CURaise is a centralized platform built to streamline the fundraising experience at Cornell. With student organizations regularly hosting fundraisers, CURaise aims to simplify the process for both organizers and participants—helping organizers manage promotions, track orders and payments, and analyze performance across semesters, while enabling students to easily discover and support active fundraisers.
CONTEXT
What's the problem with Fundraising
Clubs and organizations at Cornell rely heavily on fundraising to support their operations. However, the current fundraising process is often confusing, disorganized, and overwhelming for both organizers and participants. This is where CURaise comes in. It aims to raise the bar for fundraising at Cornell while also simplifying and streamlining the entire process.
THE PROBLEM
How are fundraisers run right now
One of the major challenges in the current fundraising process at Cornell is the difficulty of managing and interpreting data. Organizers often need to sort through large volumes of information to calculate total orders, track individual contributions, and determine overall profit. This process is time-consuming and mentally taxing, especially when the data is scattered or not automatically aggregated. Without a centralized system, even simple metrics become complicated to extract, leading to frustration and inefficiency
Long long spreadsheets of orders that organizers have to sort through
In addition to data management, the fundraising process is further complicated by the need to coordinate across multiple platforms and applications. Organizers often rely on a combination of tools—such as forms, spreadsheets, messaging apps, and payment systems—which rarely integrate smoothly.
All of the different apps that users had to juggle
User feels overwhelmed
USER RESEARCH
What are the people saying?
Given these challenges, we identified two primary user groups within the fundraising process: Participants and Organizers, each facing distinct pain points. Participants are typically motivated by two main goals—satisfying their cravings and supporting their friends' causes through referrals. However, they often struggle to do so because they rarely know when or where fundraisers are happening. On top of that, the process of filling out forms can be repetitive and time-consuming, discouraging engagement.
Organizers, on the other hand, face a different set of challenges. Running a single fundraiser often requires managing multiple disconnected platforms—for collecting orders, tracking payments, promoting the fundraiser, and communicating with participants. This fragmented workflow quickly becomes tedious and overwhelming, making it difficult to maintain accuracy and momentum throughout the process.
BRAINSTORMING AND DECIDING FEATURES FOR A MVP
MVP Features
A Few Key Features
A fundraiser dashboard for organisers to get quick information about their fundraiser, an analytics page, and a menu style list of goodies for the participants. I was specifically tasked with the organiser’s dashboard so I went straight to work.
INITIAL DESIGNS
What is the first thing that organisers would like to see?
I was tasked with designing the Fundraiser Home Page—the first screen organizers see when they click into a specific fundraiser. Guided by user research and a deep understanding of the organizer’s mental model, my challenge was to answer two key questions:
What would make the most sense for organizers to see first?
What information would be the most useful to them right away?
Based on these quotes from the users...
💸 ”I need to easily track income vs. spending”
This is why all the mockups include a snapshot of the analytics, It was something we kept hearing in user interviews.
📈 ”Success is tracked in different ways.”
This is why all the analytics include different progress bars, showing different trackers of success (total money earned, orders fulfilled etc)
…I made these explorations on what this page could look like.
Exploration 1
Cleaner and neater looking
Missing information on recent orders which may be useful to users
Exploration 2
Information Architecture is clear
Analytics takes up more space than it warrants
Exploration 3
Groups like things together
Many progress bars can be confusing
With these preliminary explorations under the belt, I went straight into the specifics of how specifc kinds of information would be presented on the homepage
MID FIDELITY DESIGNS AND DECISIONS
What is the best way to organise this information
Since earnings were the first thing organizers wanted to see, I focused on how to make that information clear and accessible. It made sense to give it the most space on the page because that’s what users cared about most. I tested two main visual approaches: a ring-style display (like Apple’s activity rings) to show progress toward a goal, and a line graph to track how earnings changed over time. Both aimed to give organizers a quick, useful snapshot of how their fundraiser was doing.
Total
Analytics Summary
Money Raised
Orders picked up
Time Elapsed
See more
$1000 of $2500
30 of 54 items
50 mins of 2 hours
Linear representation
Users process linear information easier
May be overwhelming for the user to read including all the other linear content on the page
Total
Analytics Summary
See more
of $200 raised
$100
items picked
300
elapsed
1hr
Ring Representation
Less cognitive overload because of visual representation
Information looks neater and cleaner
Linear information may potentially be eaiser for the brain to process
UX WRITING
Do our titles make sense to our users?
Since fundraising involves specific terminology, we wanted to make sure users clearly understood the labels used across the platform. This gave me a hands-on look into UX writing and how even small wording changes can impact user understanding.
For example, we found that the word "Home" was too vague—it didn’t give organizers enough context about what the page contained. Replacing it with "Overview" made a noticeable difference. Users were able to infer that the page would provide a summary of their fundraiser’s key details, which made navigation clearer and the interface easier to use.
The title "home" is unclear and confusing
The title "overview" is clear and gives context to what the content will be
LOOK AND FEEL DESIGN
What emotions do we want to evoke with our product?
In discussions with our PM, one goal was to create a playful look and feel to balance out the overwhelming nature of the fundraising process. With this in mind, I designed the screen using bright primary colors and rounded corners to convey that sense of playfulness. However, after gathering feedback and reviewing the design, I realized that the colors could feel overwhelming to users. This showed me the importance of exploring alternative ways to add playfulness while keeping the design clean and user-friendly.
Before
Playful vibe
Lots of different colours can feel overwhelming to users
After
Still a playful vibe (with rounded corners)
Sticks to industry standard (one primary color)
PREVIEW THE STORE FRONT
Another important design decision
We wanted to give users the ability to preview their storefront, which is essentially the things they are selling for their fundraiser.
Users click preview store front and a pop up comes up showing their storefront
The following are some considerations made of where the organisers could preview the store front
Widget with Preview Links
Groups like things together which aligns with user’s mental model
Can be difficult to miss as they are at the bottom of the interface
Secondary Buttons on top
Makes good use of available white space
Requires mental effort for users to read to know what the buttons are for
Links at respective titles
Still makes good use of available white space
Like things are grouped together which reduces friction of going to look for them elsewhere
May be dismissed as unimportant by users since they are only links (as opposed to buttons)
I chose to go with the links at respective titles design since it groups like things together, and due to not using buttons, since buttons would distract users from accomplishing their main goal of looking at important details of the fundraiser
Final Product: CURaise Fundraiser HomePage
See how close you are to your fundraiser goals
With the analytics summary, Organisers can track your fundraiser in real time, seeing money coming in, and purchases coming in, so they can make informed decisions about what to do next
DTI
Overview
Analytics
Orders
Sign Out
Cheese Cake Bake Sale
Preview Store Front
Friday, 3/25/2025
Duffield Hall, 11:00 AM to 5:00 PM
Statler Hall, 11:30: AM to 5:00 PM
Analytics Summary
Total
raised
$100
items picked
300
$50
profit
See more
Recent Orders
Time
Item
Total
14:01
Strawberry CheeseCake
2 x $11.00
$22.00
14:01
Strawberry CheeseCake
2 x $11.00
$22.00
14:01
Strawberry CheeseCake
2 x $11.00
$22.00
14:01
Strawberry CheeseCake
2 x $11.00
$22.00
See more
Fundraiser Form Reminders
Edit Buyer Form
Give your fundraiser a title
Add your financial goals
Add at least one item to your menu
Preview your storefront to see what the buyers see
With the storefront preview, Organisers can see exactly what the buyers see when they visit their storefront, so that they are able to make any changes necessary (eg if a specific product runs out
REFLECTIONS
What I learned from cuRAISING the bar
Content design is challenging but important.
Although it’s not fully captured above, there was a lot of back and forth in deciding what content to include, how to name certain features and sections, and how to structure the overall information architecture. I had underestimated how much time and thought goes into deciding which features make it into a product. Now, whether I see a product packed with features or one that’s more minimal, I have a much better appreciation for the decisions and trade-offs behind what gets shown and what doesn’t.
What is the most important thing?
Focus on that, and everything else will follow. One of the biggest challenges our team faced was learning how to prioritize. While we had plenty of ideas, such as a referral tracking system, we couldn’t implement everything due to time constraints. This forced us to step back and align on what truly mattered for the MVP. In the end, it helped us focus on delivering the most important feature for CURaise, rather than trying to do everything at once.
Yes, communication really is everything.
Your therapist, romantic partner, and project manager have probably all said this before—but it really can’t be overstated. Clear communication and alignment are essential. This became especially true in our case, since multiple designers were working on separate features. We had to sync regularly to stay aligned on the overall vision, share what was working, and be honest about what wasn’t. It was the only way to keep the product cohesive and moving forward.
shoutout to the CURaise team, it was such a pleasure to be working with you all!
