VISIT BBANGA SCHOOL

A playful digital experience for donors of Bbanga’s school project 


In 2019, I started supporting Bbanga, a small NGO, with the planning and design of their boarding school in Kalangala, Uganda. Noticing how they struggled to raise funds for the project, I developed an immersive experience that allows potential donors to witness the construction progress while virtually exploring the school grounds and being incentivized to donate specific items or buildings. The project is designed to bridge an empathy gap that often occurs with nonprofit projects that are geographically distant from their donor base.
Context: Volunteering, Semester Project  // Timeline: Jan - May 2021
Tools: Unity, C#, Rhino3D // Skills: Interaction Design, Game Design, Storytelling 



Building a boarding school in Uganda

Bbanga is a small NGO based in Vienna, Austria that focuses on educational aid in Kalangala, Uganda. The organization’s biggest project is the construction of a boarding school for children of the community, which started in 2019 and will be completed in early 2025. I started working with Bbanga as a volunteer to support with the design and planning of the school’s main hall and dormitory buildings.  


Geographical location of Kalangala, Uganda and view of the construction site (2020) 


The challenges of raising funds

While a grant from the Austrian government allowed us to fund the groundwork of the project, we continued to rely on donations from individuals and small businesses to make the project a reality. While working with Bbanga for over a year, I saw firsthand how difficult it was to attract these individuals.


Children visiting the site of their future school


Donors struggle to understand the lived experience and potential impact on affected communities

Through conversations with Bbanga team members and interviews with current and potential donors, I wanted to understand why people might decide not to donate to the project. From the responses, I synthesized three common themes:

01 Lack of transparency: Donors are unsure about the project’s state and what their money would be used for.

02 Physical distance: Most donors from Austria have never been to Uganda and lack emotional attachment to the place.

03 Lack of shared reality: Donors find it hard to imagine and empathize with the lived experience of Kalangala’s community.

Question

How might we enable potential donors in Austria to better understand the direct impact of their donations on a project in Uganda?



AR experience to increase empathy with children affected by war (ICRC: Future of War)
VR experience to learn about Gorillas (The Ellen Fund: Gorillas!)


Reducing donor disconect through playful immersive experiences 

I started by researching examples of other, larger NGOs that had already attemped to solve this problem of donor disconnect. Two examples I found particularly inspiring were the immersive experiences Future of War and Gorillas! Both use a gamified approach to both educate users about an issue and empathize with those affected.



Initial sketches visualizing my idea for a playful immersive experience 



Visualizing donation impact in ‘real time’ to drive connection 

 Inspired by these precedents, I decided to take a similar approach for this project and build a playful immersive donation experience that would allow users to follow the project’s process while being able to directly donate for a certain cause, such as a piece of furniture or building, and see their donation’s impact in ‘real time’. Creating the prototype for this project required several steps:

01 Recreating the construction site with buildings in 3D
02 Implementing the navigation & interaction in Unity 
03 Refining the visual appearance of elements and textures


First prototype with 3D modeled landscape and buildings 
Textures for landscape elements 
Figure sketches representing students 

Bridging the ‘Uncanny valley’ effect with playful abstraction

After completing the 3D modeling of the site and setting up the user navigation and interaction in Unity, I presented a preliminary prototype to my peers. The response I received was unanimous: "Where are the students?" and "Avoid the uncanny valley. The prototype lacked life, mixing abstraction with highly realistic elements. To add more life while avoiding the uncanny valley, I decided to take a playful, abstract approach to the design of people, objects, and textures. Children are represented by simple sketches of walking and playing figures, and natural elements are covered in thick, childlike brushstrokes. 



Second prototype with refined 3D model, textures, and figures 
Layout options for UI elements 

Adding interative UI to enhance user engagement

As a final step, I designed and added several UI elements to make the experience more interactive for users and allow them to see the impact of their donation in real time. A dialog box guides users through the experience with suggestions on what to explore next. To visualize donations of items such as furniture, I wanted to implement a drag-and-drop feature, but due to time constraints, I ended up with a simpler, trigger-based interaction. The 'Map' and 'News' elements, which remain in their conceptual state and are not interactive, are intended to allow users to orient themselves and learn more about the project.

Final prototype








Reflection & Challenges

The development of this project faced several constraints that limited its full realization according to my initial vision. An example of this is one of the key features I envisioned: A donation experience where users could interact with various objects, such as furniture, before being directed to a checkout process. This proved to be a challenge, especially in terms of technical feasibility, as this was my first real project developed in Unity.

In the beginning, I had the slightest hope of eventually making this project available to the public through Bbanga's website. However, as the weeks went by, I gained a deeper understanding of the time and financial investment required to fully realize such a vision. Given the size of our organization, it became clear that this project might not even be economically feasible and achievable by the time the school was completed.

Regarding testing the various stages of this project, my peers provided valuable insights as they closely matched Bbanga's donor demographics. However, I recognize that working with actual past donors could have provided more tangible feedback regarding usability and impact.

Despite these challenges, this project was an invaluable learning experience that highlighted the importance of balancing ambition with practicality, the value of user testing, and the complexities and limitations of working with volunteer-based organizations.

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JOHANNA SCHNEIDER
Johanna Schneider
schneider.johanna[at]outlook.com