UX Case Study: Supporting Disaster Relief with Human Connection
Overview
While there are many arguments around the causes of natural disasters and acts of mass violence, it is difficult to ignore the increased frequency of these incidents. This continues to expand the number of people that require help, and also the range of needs that need to be addressed. While organizations like the American Red Cross do important work in serving the immediate needs of people impacted by such crises, we aimed to understand how the needs of survivors change after the initial recovery, and whether current relief efforts address that range.
Based on our research, there is a disconnect between individuals impacted by disasters and the supporters who want to give in a meaningful way. Our proposed mobile application, Support Link, directly addresses this void by providing a platform for individuals to support each other when recovery moves beyond the initial crisis stage that the American Red Cross targets.
Responsibilities
I worked in collaboration with Lisa Shin and Winnie Chin for the entirety of the project. I served as the project manager, while Lisa and Winnie oversaw research and design, respectively. However, we all contributed to each stage, and I was responsible for the design of the final pitch presentation, the personas, and the landing page and registration wireframes for the app.
Problem Space and Opportunity
The gap between impacted individuals and supporters creates space for an opportunity to better serve survivors and the overarching initiatives of the American Red Cross. Our research shows that the needs of impacted individuals shift toward emotional support and connection as time passes, and that supporters want additional ways for meaningful involvement beyond monetary donations and in-person volunteering. The American Red Cross seeks more regular engagement by supporters. This is where our research shows a multi-faceted benefit to partnering with the American Red Cross by linking our application to its website. Our product extends supporter involvement beyond reactionary donations to ongoing remote volunteering, delivering a solution to the individual connection that survivors need, and increasing engagement with the American Red Cross’ platform.
Users
We focused on individuals that are affected by natural disasters or crises and those that want to support their recovery. Drawing on our research, we created two different personas — Laura and Jay — to represent the range of needs and concerns held by these two groups. Laura, a survivor of a hurricane, helped focus our team on the sensitivity of the pains of a user in this situation, as well as the evolution of potential needs over the course of recovery. Jay, a supporter of the hurricane recovery, informed our decisions on how to increase engagement from an individual that holds the valuable potential to complement the efforts of the American Red Cross.
Scope and Constraints
The project was confined to a two week sprint, ending on October 11, 2019. We were asked to create a digital product with the intention of delivering a social good, and to identify a business partner with which to launch the project. We chose the American Red Cross, targeting a solution that would enhance natural disaster and crisis relief. Due to the limited time frame, our final deliverable was a high-fidelity prototype that could be pitched to the American Red Cross.
Process
In order to validate the need for additional support, we based our project heavily on research of current support methods and challenges, as well as the real life experiences of those that have been directly involved in giving or receiving support in the aftermath of disasters. Before stepping into the design of our product, we screened and interviewed participants that represented a wide range of disasters and location, to understand the full range of needs. From these research findings, we extracted the insights that shaped the features of the product. This user-centric focus continued into our design phase, as we evaluated the experience of real users with each stage of our prototype, and adjusted the design accordingly.
Research
In order to gauge the viability of partnering with the American Red Cross for our concept, we started with an analysis of the organization’s value proposition and key drivers. We also examined the features of its website, and those of other non-profits operating in a similar space, collecting information that could allow our design to complement the organization’s current digital approach.
We next turned the experiences of our intended users. Understanding that our time constraints would allow for a limited bandwidth for user research, we felt it was important to target a diverse set of experiences to prevent bias to a particular type of disaster or geographical area. To achieve this goal, we deployed an online screener survey to identify the appropriate interview participants. We ended up with a balance of past givers and receivers of relief support, representing a range of crises and locations. The interviews largely focused on what participants found to be most beneficial and most challenging in giving or receiving support, especially as time progressed.
Research Synthesis
Relying on affinity mapping to identify trends within our interview responses, we were able to derive some important takeaways. Our research uncovered a preference by survivors to hear directly from government and relief organization officials in the early aftermath of a disaster, and the possibility that hearing from many supporters outside of that circle could be overwhelming initially.
However as time passes, responses indicated a shift to wanting more conversation as the spotlight moves on and impacted individuals are left to themselves to continue their recovery beyond the initial basic needs. On the supporter side, research highlighted concerns about transparency around the use of donations, and desires to extend their impact beyond monetary contributions, especially when they could not be there in person. This left us with the question of how our product could create a healing connection between these two types of potential users.
Design
Given that the aim of our project was to gain approval for full development, we focused on producing a minimum viable product that could effectively demonstrate the value of the application, while fitting into our time frame. We created a MoSCoW map and feature prioritization matrix to help decide as a team on what features we would include to achieve this result.
Ultimately we decided to focus our prototype on allowing impacted individuals to request specific supplies (and provide supporters with information on this direct use of their donations), providing both types of users with direct alerts specific to the crisis in which they are involved (leveraging push notifications and captioned videos to also better serve the deaf and hard of hearing, who are often alienated by audio-based relief updates), and matching impacted individuals and supporters to allow for individual messaging that extends support into the later stages of recovery.
We chose to make our product a native mobile application for more effective use of its features, leveraging the ability to send push notifications, and store offline information for the user if the disaster causes connectivity issues. The requirement was to chose one platform on which to launch the product. While our aim would be to gain enough traction to extend the application to iOS, we decided on Android for the initial product, based on the wider use of the Android platform (85% of smartphones worldwide).
In order to ensure proper usability of the application, we ran two rounds of usability testing and card sorting, bridging our development from a mid-fidelity to high-fidelity prototype. Our first round of testing highlighted the need to simplify and condense the main menu and registration process. We adjusted the prototype accordingly and ran a second round of tests. The results supported our changes, as the easiness rating of the tested tasks improved by an average of 49%, the time needed per task decreased by an average of 38 seconds, and the success rate increased by 30%. These results predict increased engagement and higher use of the application, which are key performance indicators for both our product and the American Red Cross.
Outcome
Driving our journey to the final prototype with research and a user-centric focus, we developed a mobile application that not only caters to the key drivers for the American Red Cross, but also provides value for those impacted by disasters and the individuals looking to support their recovery. Our research validated the need for the product, as well as the application’s effectiveness in delivering meaningful solutions. While Support Link would not be a comprehensive answer to all the complex questions around disaster relief, it would serve as an important complement to the existing efforts, and promote the ability of individuals to uplift each other at a time in which that empowerment is necessary.
