Taras Vovchuk | Product Designer

CalendAid: Community Event Platform

Created a centralized event calendar for Chicago's Ukrainian community.

Results at a Glance

60-80

Average Daily Users

Hundreds

Events Listed

Organic growth

Event organizers submit their own listings

2+ years

Still running

Organization

Help Razom (501(c)(3))

My Roles

UX/UI Designer,

Developer

Focus Areas

Information Architecture

UX/UI Design

Webflow Development

CMS Setup

Duration

3 weeks

Team

1 person

Project Overview

Chicago has an active Ukrainian community — rallies, fundraisers, festivals, cultural events. But information was scattered across Instagram posts, Facebook groups, and word of mouth.

People kept telling us the same thing: "I missed that event — I didn't know it was happening."

Together with Help Razom, I built CalendAid — a centralized calendar where anyone could find upcoming events supporting Ukraine in one place.

My role

I handled discovery, platform research, design, development, and ongoing maintenance — from early conversations with the community to the live platform people use today.

User interviews revealed a primary desire among Chicago’s Ukrainian community: a straightforward platform for discovering and participating in local events supporting Ukraine. Users emphasized the need for immediate access to weekend events, including easy ticketing and directions. Long-term planning was less important; instead, they sought a convenient tool to decide how to spend their available time.

This feedback guided the design of CalendAid to prioritize real-time event updates, simple ticketing links, and straightforward filtering, ensuring it met the community’s immediate needs for accessibility and usability.

Project Goals

Centralize event discovery. One place to find everything, instead of checking five platforms.

Prioritize "this weekend." Users wanted to know what's happening soon, not plan months ahead.

Design for volunteer management. Any team member should be able to add and edit events without technical help.

Platform Selection

The platform had to be simple enough that any volunteer could manage it.

I tested several no-code options. Framer was familiar, but at the time it lacked CMS filtering capabilities. Adding custom code would have worked, but would've made the system harder for non-technical volunteers to maintain.

Webflow had the CMS filtering I needed out of the box and was easier for volunteers to learn.

Seeking an easy-to-manage system for non-technical users, I explored various no-code solutions but found that existing platforms either had complex navigation or lacked robust CMS filtering capabilities essential for effective event management and updates. Opting for Webflow due to its advanced CMS features, I aimed to implement comprehensive event categorization and filtering systems. Integrating custom code developed with ChatGPT was planned to further enhance these capabilities.

Design Decisions

Day-of-Week Tags, Not Just Dates

User conversations revealed people think in terms of "this Saturday" not "December 14th." Event cards show the day of the week prominently, with "Today" highlighted. Default sorting is by date — what's happening soonest appears first.

Event Submission Workflow

Event organizers can submit their own events through a form. Submissions go directly into the CMS as drafts — all data pre-filled. Volunteers reviewing submissions just click one button to publish.

This balances openness (anyone can submit) with quality control (team reviews before publishing) while minimizing volunteer effort.

Results

60-80

Average daily users with spikes into hundreds during major events

Hundreds of events

listed since launch

Google indexed

Users find the platform through search

Organic submissions

Event organizers proactively request listings

Reflection

What I Learned

Match the tool to the team, not your preference. I knew Framer better, but Webflow was the right choice for a volunteer-run platform. The best tool is the one that works after you step away.

What I'd Do Differently

Add email notifications. Users asked for weekly "events near you" emails. Would have increased return visits and engagement.

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