Evolution of the donation form

[Changaco]

This issue is about the shortcomings of the current donation form and how it should evolve. The previous thread about this was #569.

It's unlikely that the next version will completely replace the current one, instead it should probably be possible for creators to choose which variant of donation form they want their potential patrons to see by default.

The current problems include:

• the standard donation suggestions (Standard donation amounts #975) and the lack of support for custom amounts and options ([feature] Option to set specific amount donors can give #996, Feature request: set max contribution (as a creator) #1072, Creators can't customize the suggested donation amounts #1759)
• the lack of support for non-recurrent donations (Non-recurrent donations aren't supported #415)
• the lack of support for non-anonymous donations (Anonymity prevents thanking sponsors #271)
• the inability to attach a private note to a donation (Allow attaching a private note to donations #56)
• the inability for the donor to state “I want to pause this donation if the creator's income goes above XXX per month” (Automatically pausing and resuming a donation based on the total income of the recipient #50)
• the lack of support for recipient-triggered donations (Support donation-per-work #839)

We have to figure out a new design that can accommodate everyone, or multiple designs optimized for various use cases and personal preferences.

[Changaco]

One suggested alternative design is to ask the donor how much money they want to send right away, instead of asking for a periodic amount and then asking for a payment amount in a second step.

From @mattbk in #1581 (comment):

It seems like the UX could be changed to something like:

• How much to give bob: $12
• When would you like to be reminded to donate again: 3 months
• This averages out to: $4 per month, $1 per week, and if you renew, $48 per year

[trebmuh]

Sounds fine to me 👍

[mattbk]

To clarify, the last bullet would be generated on the fly based on the previous two fields.

I wasn't even thinking about how the pledge/send forms were on different pages. Glad you're here to translate for me ;-)

One thing that will be affected is this call to action:

The call to action is related to a weekly donation amount, which may be confusing when you can enter any amount and any period of time.

I know the next page is (right now) structured to go through all the donations, but it would be nice to have the three payment buttons on the same page as the donation form.

Last thing I can think of is how to include one-off donations when calculating a weekly amount. How many weeks should you amortize over? A year?

[Changaco]

@mattbk

The call to action is related to a weekly donation amount, which may be confusing when you can enter any amount and any period of time.

The goal is only weekly because we don't yet allow the creator to specify another period, but the potential confusion will still exist after that's fixed.

I know the next page is (right now) structured to go through all the donations, but it would be nice to have the three payment buttons on the same page as the donation form.

By “three payment buttons” I assume you mean the payment method selection (card, direct debit, paypal).

Last thing I can think of is how to include one-off donations when calculating a weekly amount. How many weeks should you amortize over? A year?

That's one of the big problems with one-off donations. Open Collective computes an “Estimated Annual Budget”, described as “Projected annual budget based on total financial contributions from the past 12 months.”, and shortened to “Yearly Budget” in profile boxes. My guess is that they count any non-recurrent donation as an annual one.