How human-centered design changed my outlook towards design!
Case Study: A platform to help new immigrant students with cultural adaptability
I will explain and take you through my process of designing Pakka Local — A platform to help new immigrant students with cultural adaptability. This project is part of the course Human-Centered Design by IDEO and Acumen Academy.
Problem:
How might we improve the education experience for new immigrants?
Context:
Immigration is a reality for millions of people around the world. Life in a new country comes with many challenges: uncertainty, language barriers, resource constraints, and new job markets — just to name a few. How do newcomers acquire skills and information to adapt to their environments? How might we improve these educational experiences?
- Project Duration: 2 months
- Team Members: Forum, Sushmita, Subba, Komal
- My Role: User Research, UX Design, Visual Design
Rather than directly jumping on the solutions we followed the Human-Centered Design process and tried to put humans at the center while designing the solutions. So let’s deep dive into the process.
What is Human-Centered Design(HCD)?
Human-centered design is a practical, repeatable approach of arriving at innovative solutions. It’s a process that starts with the people we’re designing for and ends with new solutions that are tailor-made to suit their needs.
HCD process has three phases namely:
- Inspiration Phase
- Ideation Phase
- Implementation Phase
Inspiration Phase
“Creating meaningful solutions begins with gaining a deep understanding of people’s needs.” — IDEO Design Kit
The team started the discussion by listing the common problems any new immigrant student might face on a day to day basis.
Here are some of the problem assumptions:
- Language barriers
- Food issues
- Uncertainties
- The problem of getting adjusted to the new environment — tackling the climatic changes
- The struggle is less if people in a new place are supportive or already known
Aspects of the problem that required deeper understanding:
- What are the actual problems/challenges faced by the new immigrants?
- In what mental state new immigrants are in their new place?
- How do new immigrants learn and adapt to the change in their new place? Or How do new immigrants evolve into a new place?
- Do immigrants find any problems related to food in their new place?
After identifying aspects of the problem we know and don’t know. The next stage is research.
Research Plan
We listed out potential people to learn from and experts to speak to as part of our research.
People to learn from:
- Students who moved from one country to another.
- Students who moved from one state to another state within the country.
Experts to speak to:
- Facilitators who’ve been working with students moving from different states/countries with language barriers.
To design an effective solution we have to first understand the pain point of the new immigrants.
But How?
- By interviewing people(i.e. new immigrants)
- By interviewing experts and doing secondary research
- By immersing in the context
Interviewing people(for whom we are designing)
We interviewed new immigrants or people who have already gone through the same phase using an interview questionnaire.
The interviews helped us to conclude the following things:
- People moved from one state/country to another state/country either to pursue their education or because one of their parents got transferred due to a job.
- People initially faced problems such as: Language barriers, Climate change, Cultural differences and lifestyle changes, Different education environments, Fear of not getting well with their classmates/surrounding people, and Lack of confidence as they have to adapt to new learning techniques, peers and environment.
Voices of People
Following are some of the statements that people said while we interviewed them.
Expert interviews and Secondary Research
After interviewing a couple of the experts with an interview questionnaire, we figured out the concerns that experts have encountered and how they help immigrants to make them comfortable in their new environment.
So, according to experts, common issues faced by new immigrants in their new education environment are:
- Adjusting accent
- Language barrier
- Food differences
- Different academic environment
Experts help them by:
- Trying to neutralize language issues
- Making student groups so they help each other
- Involving them in academic and co-curricular activities
- Assigning a mentor & buddy at school/college
- Daily one on one sessions
- Constant follow ups with parents
Immersing in the context
The interviews helped us understand the context better.
We figured out the following by immersing in the context further:
Why do people move to a new state or new country?
- For study
- For better lifestyle
- Just because their parents moved
- For a better job opportunity
What are the actual problems faced by new immigrants?
- Language barrier
- Different education environment
- In understanding lectures because at times professors/facilitators used regional/local language to explain the concept
- Climate change
- Cultural & lifestyle change
- Fear of not bonding with classmates/surrounding people
- Lack of confidence due to a new learning environment
How do experts help new immigrants?
- Trying to neutralize language issues
- Making student groups so they help each other
- Involving them in academic and cocurricular activities
- Assigning a mentor & buddy at school
- Daily conducting one on one sessions
- Constant connectivity with parents
Ideation Phase: Synthesis
“The Ideation phase transforms your research into meaningful and actionable insights that will become the foundation of your design.” — IDEO Design Kit
By capturing our learnings and by gathering information and observation from all the qualitative research we had done from the inspiration phase we organized them into groups of similar items(i.e. Themes).
After clustering information into themes we have created three insights statements for each theme that we had created as insights to convey the sense of a new perspective or possibility. Insights are a succinct expression of what we have learned from our field research activities. Insights offer a new perspective, even if they are not new discoveries.
Insight 1: New immigrant students feel isolated and emotionally stressed in the initial few months.
Insight 2: Cultural adjustment is one thing the students aspire for and one of the determinants of better integration.
Insight 3: Immigrant students find problems because of differences in education medium.
We further continued with creating “How might we” questions for each insight statement.
Ideation Phase: Prototyping
“Prototyping of the Ideation phase will enable you to turn your opportunities for design into innovative concepts to prototype.” — IDEO Design Kit
After identifying opportunities for a design we started brainstorming, we used the three “How Might We(HMW)” questions that we defined in Synthesis Phase to brainstorm around.
After brainstorming we selected 2–3 main ideas from HMW questions later we finalized one main idea to work on further.
So, How might we create spaces and opportunities to learn and adjust to the new culture for immigrant students?
Our Approach:
Design an app for new immigrants that help them with cultural adaptability in their new environment.
Idea Description:
An app that helps new immigrant students to get to know local events, explore the locality, and collaborate with like minded people. Also creating awareness about the ongoing/upcoming events, classes, local markets, and the places to explore over the weekend by making announcements from the kiosk during break hours. Interested students can come to the kiosk and talk to one of our representatives who will not just help the students with the information printed on the brochure but also will guide them on how they can connect to the app by scanning the barcodes on the brochure.
How will this idea impact the problem we’re addressing?
We learned that for students to have a better educational experience they have to overcome emotional and cultural issues. Students have to get adjusted to the food, language, and lifestyle in the new locality. Our idea creates a platform where new students get a chance to meet their fellow students. This solution also gives an opportunity for new students to meet other students across the campus and also students who share similar interests. Students can collaborate and attend the local events or go for a hike together or pursue interests together. As students get to know other students; it would help them acclimatize to the new environment faster and create a sense of belonging. This also gives other students to make new connections, builds a safe space for everyone, and makes them feel involved in the greater good. This idea will not completely eradicate the “stranger in town” feeling but it will certainly help the immigrant students come out of the bubble faster and get adjusted. It will also have a direct impact on the emotional well-being and thereby improve the academic performance of the student.
One of the butterfly effects of this idea would be to reduce the number of depression cases among children and teenagers because the feeling of “being left out” is one of the most common factors of depression amongst youth.
Storyboard
Name: Harry
Age: 19
Profession: Student
Other Characteristics: He moved for the first time to Hyderabad to pursue higher education. He is a shy, introverted teenager. He loves art.
Harry is emotionally stressed and feels low as he has no clue how he makes himself comfortable around the new place. As he grabs a sandwich at the café he hears “Serendipity Art Event” from the kiosk placed near the café in his college. As art is his interest; he walks into the kiosk to know more about the event.
“Pakka Local” representative at the kiosk spoke to him and gave him all the details of the event and also told him about how he can get onto the “Pakka Local” app to explore further ongoing/upcoming events, local markets, classes, places he can explore nearby. She walks through the brochure that has information related to college and locality. She also talks to him about he can scan the barcode to explore further details and can install the app.
Harry goes through the brochure and scans the barcode to install the app. He finds the information about ongoing/upcoming events and classes, local markets, local places to explore and collaborate with like minded people on the Homepage of the app. He goes through the information and registers himself with the “Serendipity Art Event”. The app also gives Harry the option to carpool with others from his campus.
Harry visits the “Serendipity Art Event” with 3 other students from his campus. His 3 new acquaintances introduce him to other students from the campus who are even at the art event. He feels nice about meeting others from his campus with similar interests. He believes he has made the right choice by getting on the Pakka Local app.
Harry is now regularly getting notifications about ongoing/upcoming events, and local markets to explore and collaborate with like minded people. He is attending different events and exploring the locality based on the suggestions made on the app. He now has friends from his own campus and from his neighborhood. He is a part of the art and hiking clubs. He also joined the ongoing classes to pick up the local language. Finally, Harry clears his first year with flying colors as he is now acclimatized with the locality by using the app.
Determining what to prototype
After creating a storyboard we identify and prioritize the questions that we need to answer with our prototype.
What is the most important question to answer?
How can we talk to students and help them understand the benefits of signing up for our app named “Pakka Local”?
How might we test it?
- By creating a mock-up of “PAKKA LOCAL” to help students understand the look and feel of our idea.
- Set up a kiosk on the campus in a place where students can easily see, hear and reach, making some posters to advertise the “PAKKA LOCAL”. When students stop by either when they are walking around or after they listen to the announcement made by one of our co-workers about the local events, we indulge them in fun activities to make them feel comfortable. After which, one of our co-workers will have a brief conversation about the student’s whereabouts and then show him/her the brochure where details related to different local activities, classes, and local markets are printed.
- Our co-workers will also talk about how the app not only helps them with the locality’s information but also how it can improve their emotional status of them.
- Last but not least we also talk about the cash backs, discounts one can avail by booking tickets through the app.
- Students can always use the takeaway material and sign up for the app or can come to the kiosk in case they need any assistance.
Prototype
To summarize:
After conducting interviews in the inspiration phase and empathizing with them, we understood that more than the academics students find it emotionally difficult to get adjusted to the locality; hence we came up with the idea of the “Pakka Local” app which gives different recommendations that help students explore and learn the locality independently or by joining a group.
Our wireframes explored how students learn about the app and acclimatize themselves with the locality by exploring different themes presented by the system. Therefore we decided to place a kiosk on the campus where students can walk in to know either about:
- How they can get onto the app, once a student registers themselves.
- They will get to see the information related to ongoing/upcoming local events, local markets, classes, and places to explore.
- They can choose their area of interest and book a slot if wanted.
- They will get to see different recommendations which include sending/receiving carpool requests, incentives they can receive while making a booking, and added incentives while making payment using the money in the wallet.
Implementation Phase
“The Implementation phase is about understanding how to bring your solution to life, and to market in the real world.” — IDEO Design Kit
Final Pitch
Every year students enroll either in foreign educational institutes or new cities within their country in pursuit of good academic opportunities that result in starting a flourishing career. These students face a twin challenge of getting adjusted to the new academic culture and living environment. Sometimes these adjustments are not smooth as a student has to adapt to multiple factors like language, culture, peers, food, weather etc. This may create stress on them resulting in poor academics, and poor social and emotional health. Some may dropout because of these factors. Therefore we have come up the idea of “PAKKA LOCAL” app-based student activity platform that helps them to not just to explore locality and but also make acquaintances, not miss out on their interests, hobbies.
The app provides relevant local information (about local markets, places to explore, and local events) to the immigrant students so that they can appreciate and adapt to the local culture of the institution and the city in which the institution is located.
The benefits of the app will be presented to the governing body of the institution, to the new immigrants, to the existing local groups and will be integrated into the college’s website so a student has an idea about the app and can start using the app even before they move in. In case of any concerns using the app, they can always reach out to the kiosk that’s placed on the campus and get in-person assistance.
Action Plan
Our next steps include…
- Setting up a mockup in one of the universities/colleges and choosing students from the same college as volunteers so that it will not just be easy to talk to the new students but also it will be easy to collect genuine feedback.
- Document the results/feedback so that as a team we can make modifications to the app before we plan our launch.
- Work with the university and get administrative approvals to integrate the app’s information on the university’s website.
- Build a team that can work together on building the app.
- We want to identify potential investors so that we can handle the operational costs and salaries of the employees.
- Last but not least we also want to make plans on how to sustain it over a period of time and have user retention.
Reflections and key takeaways
- How have my definitions and understanding of “design” and “human-centered design” changed through this course?: People generally see design as making something look good but it is actually much more than that. Before joining this course I have little idea about what human-centered design is but after completing the course and applying the human-centered design process from the inspiration phase to the implementation phase on a real-world problem now it makes more sense. The most important thing I learned is that the heart of HCD is deep empathy toward the people for whom we are designing. If you do not have empathy for them and what they want then you are not able to solve the problems for them and how we should always keep people back in the center of our solution in every stage of the human-centered design process.
- How has my approach to creativity and creative work changed through this course? Before, I perceived creativity as something related to art and artistic work. But now I perceived creativity as thinking. Thinking helps to perceive the world in a different/new way, solve problems and meet challenges.
Thank you for the patience. Hope you found this case study insightful and learned something from it.
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