Cluster
Gamified community app, led from beta to iOS and Android launch
Overview
Most people who want to volunteer either never do it or do it once and stop. Not because they lack motivation, but because finding the right opportunity, knowing who else is going, and feeling like participation matters is fragmented across platforms that treat civic engagement like a directory rather than a community. I joined Cluster as Lead Product Designer to fix that, owning the product from beta through the public iOS and Android launch in January 2021.
The app brought together volunteers, nonprofits, brands, and city governments in one place, with an interactive map, social integration, and a gamification system built around consistent participation. The addressable market was in the US who already wanted to give back but had no single place to do it.
That number mattered for product decisions. The platform was not trying to convince people to care about social causes. It was trying to remove the friction that stopped people who already cared from following through. The design challenge was behavioral, not motivational.
Challenge
The friction had three specific shapes: discovery was scattered across dozens of unrelated platforms, participation felt solitary rather than social, and nothing in the experience made showing up a second time feel more compelling than the first.
The design challenge was to make civic engagement feel less like a directory and more like a community where showing up actually meant something.
Process
Understanding why people don't follow through
I started by mapping where the experience broke down, not at discovery, but after it. Users would find an event and not commit, or show up once and disengage. User stories from early beta helped me understand the motivation gap: people needed social proof, lower commitment barriers, and visible progress that made participation feel meaningful.
Designing for community, not just discovery
The map-based discovery layer let users see volunteer events nearby, but the real design work was making it feel social. I integrated with Instagram, Facebook, Twitter, TikTok, and LinkedIn so users could see what their network was already doing and join in. In-app communication and event co-hosting made participation feel shared, not solitary.
Making engagement stick
The leaderboard, badge system, and award mechanics were not decoration. They were the answer to a simple question: why would someone open this tomorrow? I designed the reward system to recognize consistent behavior over time, not just one-off actions. The habit loop has to be earned, not assumed.
Shipping across platforms without losing quality
I led the end-to-end launch on iOS and Android and built the internal design system that kept the experience consistent across both. The style guide covered components, patterns, and interaction states, which made it easier to ship new features from user stories without the product drifting.
Solution
Volunteers could see what their network was already doing and join in. The map surfaced nearby opportunities, social integration made participation feel shared rather than solitary, and the badge and leaderboard system gave people something that accumulated over time, a record that showing up had meant something.
Getting organizations onto the platform from day one was a deliberate design strategy, not just a business decision. Launch partners including VolunteerMatch, the city of San Antonio, and Aspiration gave the platform .
The cold start problem is the hardest problem in community product design. A social platform with no people is not just unappealing, it is actively off-putting. We solved it by treating institutional partnerships as a design requirement. The platform needed content density and organizational presence before it could ask individual users to show up.
Impact
10+
volunteer events live on the platform within the first two months
Day 1
paying revenue and civic partners signed before public launch
iOS + Android
simultaneous launch across both platforms
Covered by KTLA, BusinessWire, and the Phillip Lanos Podcast as a new model for community engagement. One of the few consumer social apps to launch during a global pandemic with both paying partners and city government relationships already in place.
In the media
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