Before an app/website was born…
During our sessions in Ad ’n’ PR Lab,in the Department of Media, Communication and Culture of Panteion University, we had a mission: to create an innovative website and application. My team, Colorful Minds, which consists of 7 students; Amalia St, Lambrini Tsiligianni, Eleni Georgiou, Maria Staikopoulou, Andromache Efstathiou, Marilou Karakosta and me, Nefeli Staikoura, after suggesting many ideas, decided to create something which will provide some help to the ones who need it; that is about blood donation.
In order to find out if our app and website were going to be useful, we had to do some research regarding to people’s interest and attitude towards blood donation. So we, my colleague Marilou Karakosta and I, did. In the first place, we discussed with our close ones and asked them whether they would or would not use an app like this, even if they have never been blood donors before, as most of our friends do. Eventually, we were pleased to hear, especially from the older ones — our parents,for example — that they would use this platform to get notified in case they can help someone in need or to let people know about someone who needs blood.
After that, we created an online questionnaire by Google Docs in Greek and forwarded it to some of our Facebook friends aged 18 to 55. We received answers from 52 people.
Through these questions, we mainly wanted to figure out how many of them are already blood donors and if not, if they would like to be; In this question most of them (almost 70%) answered that they were not;
But in the next questions — if they would use an app related to blood donation which would provide them with advice and notifications about people in need of blood and if this would encourage them and make the donation’s process easier for them — the answer was positive. Many of them (over 70%) would like to be a blood donor and over the half of them would use our app (61%); also, the same amount agrees that an app like ours would probably encourage them.
Thirdly, we asked them if they believe there is enough information about this subject and prompt notification about the lack of blood through the Internet and social media. The most popular answer was that they think there is, but insufficient and not easily accessible.
Moreover, an other question was if they think that such an app would facilitate to raise awareness on the subject and notify help-givers in time when in emergency cases, and most — almost 80% — answered yes.
Finally, we asked them to briefly describe what they would expect from this app, apart from the multiple choices they are given. The answers we gathered were largely regarding to receiving notifications when someone in their region needs blood of the same type with theirs, while more than the half claim that they should be notified about which center is nearby and when it is available.
To sum up, the main point we needed to keep in mind so as to develop our service was that people are willing to offer and help if they can, as long as they are easily and quickly informed. And that is our vision; make it easy for people to help.
You can also check how our idea came true:
