Recently I wrote about a little UX exercise I did at work. It was about prototyping for designers. I’ve been building a prototype of a donation box, to help a colleague to collect some compensation for his expenses—Designers also should build physical prototypes

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Meanwhile, that fellow colleague has set up an a/b-test, to find out how to increase the amount per donation. It’s very interesting to see, which issues, or hypothetical improvements were already addressed, while not being aware of my last article.

• Security — there’s no lock on the prototype
• Insertion slot — big coins, like our 2€, don’t fit
• Visual Design — as it is a quick and dirty prototype, the design is quite basic, even ugly

Compare the prototype (original) versus the first mature model (variant).

This first model of a mature donation box comes with several improvements:

• A lock to prevent people from stealing money — although, as I already mentioned, we’re all good people 😉
• Wider insertion slot allows throwing in the 2€ coin
• Premium designed, wooden chest

The preliminary result is quite clear. So far — after circa three weeks — the variant outscores the original by 54:15 Euros.

Still, that’s by far not enough to fully compensate my colleague’s expenses. But, as I also mentioned in the original article.

[…] without forcing anyone to cover the exact amount of their consumption. And, without hurting the colleague’s need to do good to the community.

And finally, the range of sweets has also been expanded. So now I’ll go over to get another candy bar.