Matter of Trust

Closing the gap between posting and confirming a donation

Matter of Trust's Hum Sum donation platform suffered from high abandonment during the donation process. Users posted their donation but never confirmed it. That meant no tax-deductible receipt, and no way for the organization to track contributions or prove impact to stakeholders. As the sole designer on the team, I originally hired as the graphic designer, I took on the Hum Sum website redesign when the founder identified the need.

Matter of Trust Hum Sum donation platform interface

Problem

People didn't know confirmation was required

Users abandoned the donation process after posting their offer, unaware that a separate confirmation step was required to generate a tax-deductible receipt. This gap prevented Matter of Trust from tracking donations accurately, undermining their ability to document impact for grant applications and stakeholder reporting.

Key abandonment stages in the donation process

Solution

A unified communication and action pathway

We embedded the confirmation action directly into message threads with a visually prominent call-to-action button, removing the need to navigate to a separate page. We also redesigned the platform's icon system, replacing unfamiliar symbols with literal ones, swapping a generic camera icon for an image upload icon, for example, so the interface communicated function at a glance.

Redesigned Hum Sum messaging thread with a confirm the exchange button embedded in the conversation

Confirm donations within messages

Research

A mental model disconnect

"I thought I had already donated when I posted my offer. I had no idea I needed to take another step to make it official."

— User interview participant

Interviews revealed users believed posting their donation meant the donation was complete. The confirmation step that actually finalized it lived on a separate page, disconnected from the messaging system where nearly all user activity happened.

Diagram comparing user expectation, posted equals donated, with system reality, where a confirm donation step is required

The mental model disconnect I discovered

Three pain point cards: fragmented information, lack of context, and unfamiliar information architecture

Main pain points

Ideation

Centralizing actions where users already engage

The key insight was simple: the messaging interface was already where users spent most of their time, so it should also be where they completed donation actions. We explored designs that consolidated confirm, cancel, and review functions directly into conversation threads, drawing inspiration from familiar marketplace interfaces like Facebook Marketplace.

Ideation explorations showing message previews for more context and centralized donation actions inside the conversation

Centralized actions and a people-first header came first: testing showed users needed to know who they were talking to more than what they'd donated

Iteration

Refining through user feedback

We separated the buttons with clear spacing and contrast so each option read as its own tappable action.

Two iterations of the confirm and unmatch buttons, from full-width buttons to clearly defined and separated buttons

Results and impact

A clearer path to completed donations

Usability testing with 6 participants showed the redesign addressed the core problem. 5 out of 6 said the new flow made it easier to complete the donation confirmation step, and participants consistently noted the consolidated messaging view felt faster and less confusing than the original separate-page flow.

Before and after of the Hum Sum messaging interface: donors had to search for next steps to confirm their donation, and after, next steps are consolidated within messages

Reflection

What I learned designing for trust

I learned how much a single small disconnect, a confirmation step hidden one page away, can undermine an entire donation system. Centralizing that action into messaging didn't just fix a navigation problem. It removed the moment where users assumed they were done when they weren't. If this project continued, the next step would be exploring automated reminders and more direct matching between donors and recipients.