Bridge: An application to help the helpers
Project Overview
During a crisis event, it’s “often easier to rely on citizen help, like grassroots efforts, rather than wait for bureaucracy” is a quote from one of our users that perfectly summarizes the problem we set out to solve. Immediately after a crisis event, like a natural disaster, response from governments and NGO simply can’t help all those who are affected. We solved for this by creating an app that connects people that can offer assistance, to those that need non-emergency assistance.
With user interviews, we heard from a family that organized a functioning gas pipeline across 80 miles after Hurricane Sandy to supply their community with vital gas to keep generators running. A mother who organized over 20 people to help shovel the streets after a severe blizzard that had shut down her neighborhood. From these user interviews we learned key insights, for example, people need ways to spread information at a mass level or recruit and mobilize volunteers.
These insights helped us create Dora and Theo, representations of our target users who have undergone crisis, and are prepared to aid their community, or need aid themselves. These insights also helped us develop features like digitized public bulletins that connect volunteers like Dora with people like Theo. We also gained an understanding of the best companies to connect with, choosing Facebook, with its globally existing user base with an emphasis on community.
We ultimately arrived at a mid-fidelity design which we were able to test with participants. We validated our idea, and learned that while the idea was clear, there were usability issues in the search feature. We aimed to resolve many of these issues in the high-fidelity revisions, and while we saw general success in 3 of our tasks, the search feature remains challenging and unintuitive for users to use. This is, in part, due to the way we asked participants to use the search feature — a scenario where they ask unsuspecting people for assistance rather than messaging the people who have already offered assistance. This research report concludes with next steps to take, like resolving the search feature, and some KPIs designed from Google’s Heart Framework.
Scope of Work
Our problem space for this project are people who have experienced a natural disaster or other unavoidable crisis in the past 8 years. From our initial interviews we found that during a crisis event like a natural disaster, there are many people that need help and others who want to help. Logistical concerns were the main cause of frustration in the organizing process,so we sought to create a tool for these helpers which could better leverage their desire to help and connect them with those in their community who were in need.
Process
We conducted 6 user interviews to gain insight into the motivations and needs of our prospective users. From these insights we created a primary persona which represented the helpers and a secondary to represent those needing help. We created an affinity map to further hone in on the needs of our primary persona. Additionally, we created a competitive landscape to understand who we should partner with, and where our prospective solution was positioned in the market. From there we collaborated for a design studio, which led to our mid fi prototype design. We tested the mid-fi prototype to better understand how our product would be received by users. From here, user testing insights led us to iterate to our High Fidelity Prototype. After finalizing this design we created wireframes, a user flow, and spec doc so our product could be easily interpreted by other teams. Additionally we compared results from both rounds of testing in order to create our next steps.
Problem Space
For the scope of our project the following was people will trust and accept help from strangers
We also assumed People will have small-scale problems that can be solved by everyday volunteers. People will be interested in volunteering People will have access to a certain level of technology and existing community support as well as something to offer and people who wish to receive that.
Goal of Research
The goal of our research was to understand what happens when people are in a small to mid level crisis, who do they reach out to and what do they need?
Methodology
We created a screener survey to locate candidates for User Interviews. Some questions asked were whether people had experienced such a crisis as well as whether they had offered help in such situations. Additionally, we wished to speak with folks who had a recent experience to share. Users were sourced from our personal networks as well as within those we have access to through our campus. Once responses were received, we set out to learn more about these users’ experiences in order to understand more about their feelings and actions at the time of events. An eye opening discovery was that all users who had offered help to others during natural disasters, humanitarian, and financial crisis had experienced a personal crisis in the past and had received help from others, and wished to continue paying it forward or were over prepared as a result. All interviews were conducted via Zoom and transcribed and recorded using Otter AI.
Affinity Mapping and Synthesis
The above Affinity Map was created which revealed the below themes
“I am motivated to offer help during a crisis”
“I feel better emotionally and mentally when my
community checks up on me”
“ I find it important, yet difficult, to find reliable
information”
“I felt informed by my previous experience with
crisis”
“I reached for help from people I knew during a time of crisis”
“I spread information at a mass level during crisis “
Key Insights
Existing infrastructure was often damaged
and could not help in the usual ways
People needed help quicker than the
infrastructure could provide
People find it comforting when their community
checks in and stays in contact
People will check in on their friends and neighbors
during crisis
People are willing to offer help during crisis for
various reasons
Victims of crisis want reliable information about
their situation
It is often difficult to find up-to-date information
about the crisis and where to find help
Victims of crisis feel scared or unsafe
People that have experienced crisis before tend to
prepare more diligently
People needed ways to spread information at a
mass level to recruit and mobilize volunteers
The first place people look to for help are people
they already know and trust
Persona
From these insights we confirmed we had two persona’s; those offering assistance and , those that needed assistance. The interviews and insights informed the persona development by educating us on people’s experiences: what they needed, what was going wrong or was frustrating, and ultimately, what they were trying to do. The two personas are reliant on each other in these critical times. For our purposes in moving forward with a Minimum Viable Product, we will focus on the Volunteer/Helper (Dora the Doer)as our primary persona.
Journey Map (Day in a life view of target audience — why its helpful)
This is an example paragraph that provided details within this specific stage in the UX process. This is an example paragraph that provided details within this specific stage in the UX process.This is an example paragraph that provided details within this specific stage in the UX process.
Revised Problem Statement
Armed with this clarity on who Dora and Theo are, what motivates them and what they need, we were able to elaborate on our problem statement
In times of natural disaster such as blizzard, pandemic, hurricane, etc, there are always those who are disproportionately affected. Dora and Theo have both been caught in the same hurricane. Theo has never experienced a hurricane and is understocked, overwhelmed, and struggling to provide for his infant son.
Dora is a hurricane veteran and has prepared more than enough resources to help herself and her family. After checking in on her immediate neighbors, friends, and family, she is driven to mobilize her community to help people like Theo.
How might we help Dora find people who can help, and connect
them with people like Theo who need help?
Research insights led to design
The design stage we began taking our insights from research and turning them into direct features. One example includes people needing an easier way to keep tabs on their community, which resulted in things like a post feed and
group messaging.
There were so many ideas generated for features that we sorted them into a
minimum viable product through MoSCoW and feature prioritization mapping.
This allowed us to focus our design studio to the most important feature sets
which informed our mid-fidelity design.
With our first design in place we set out to test if the way we’ve designed it
was intuitive for users — which resulted in a mixed bag. While users validated
that they loved and would use our product, we learned that they wouldn’t use
it in the way we expected.
So in addition to updating the visual design for the mockup, we made changes to how users would create posts. In the second round of testing we saw an easier use, however, we learned that our search feature was not working as expected, in part due to a task scenario we created that was unlikely to play out in real life.
Principles
Prior to designing, we wanted to establish a set of principles which we would hold to be true for the creation of our product. They were:
Connect users with
their community
Help users overcome
hard times
Be a source
of compassion
and benevolence
Design Studio: Sketching ,Concepting and early ideation
Our Early Ideation had us tossing around ideas from involving small businesses to map based locators We used the design studio methods to rapidly and utilize the best ideas from each other. This was our first time doing design studio virtually, as we too are amidst the CoVid 19 crisis and interacting via zoom from our homes. We utilized miro, airdrop,our phone timers and sketchbooks to make it work.
We now had the skeleton of our Information page and Offer/Request pages and were ready to move onto the next phase.
Design Iterations: First Round (Annotations/Screen Flow)
https://www.figma.com/file/dTArvQQVA74xT2hi5SZhTX/Austin_Kelsey_StephY_P4?node-id=0%3A1
Initial User Testing: First Round
Research pointed us to the specific features, but were they designed in a way that was intuitive? Would users be able to accomplish their tasks easily and directly? Those were questions that had to be answered by our users
through a usability test.
We put together a series of scenarios and tasks that resemble Dora’s needs and asked five users to complete the variety of tasks asked. We wanted to understand how users perceive our app and if they are easily able to navigate through the features as we have designed them in order to complete the goals
and needs identified within our persona, Dora.
Opening Questions
1. What phone do you use?
2. What social media apps do you use?
3. Do you use any apps like reddit, craigslist, or
taskrabbit where you exchange information,
goods, and services with strangers?
4. If yes, what is your comfort level using those
apps?First Impressions
The town you live in is about to be hit by a Hurricane.
Your friend recommended you download this app.
Before you click on anything or interact with this site,
can you tell me…
5. What is your first impression of this app?
6. What do you think this app is all about?
7. Is there anything that you notice, or that stands
out to you?
8. Is there anything that you would like to tap on?
Scenario Task 1
Scenario
The hurricane has just passed, and you’ve opened
up the app again.
Task
Find out if people need anything.
Goal
Navigate to view the “Request Assistance” page.Scenario Task 2
You noticed a lot of requests for diapers. As an
owner of Babies R Us, you’d like to donate your
excess supply.
Task
Alert your community that you have spare diapers.
Goal
Create a volunteering post from the Offer Assistance
feed.
Scenario Task 3
Several families have reached out to say that they
are in need of diapers, but don’t have a car and can
not pick up the supplies themselves. You think there
might be others within the app who can help.
Task
See if there are volunteers that are able to bring
these diapers to those families.”
Goal
Use the Search feature to find Drivers, and navigate
to “People”.Scenario Task 4
You see three people who are able to provide this
service.
Task
Contact all of them at once to see if they are
available.
Goal
Use group messaging feature to contact neighbors
Final Thoughts
9. Did you find this app/site useful?
10. Is there anything
Feedback from our users left us with actionable insights.
A. First Impressions
• Incorporate visual identity
• Design new UI pattern for top banner
• Maintain buttons in new design
• Redesign Task Bar
• Update map icon
B. Task One
• [repeat suggestions from First Impressions]
C. Task Two
• Redesign the tag in the create a post form
• Tag placement
• Include tag submission for personal tags
• Reconsider “Create a Post” unique functionality on
each page
• Remove posts related to diapers and babies from
the offer and request page
• Add error messaging to form submit
D. Task Three
• Redesign flow to people
• Review possible changes to IA
• Update the mockup not to include offers in search
results
E. Task Four
• Redesign “People” componentHigh-fidelity Screens
Midfi to High Fi with Annotations
User Testing: Second Round
We got the new design in the hands of five users and these were the results.
We hope to do another round of user testing, as well as a second iteration on our High Fidelity Prototype within the next three weeks
Final Prototype
https://www.figma.com/file/dTArvQQVA74xT2hi5SZhTX/Austin_Kelsey_StephY_P4?node-id=339%3A3034
Recommendations + Implementation + Next Steps
From our high-fidelity design we gained many key insights. Our offer / request feed was now working well, but there is still a lot of work to be done to the IA and where we place our search feature and how users would use features like search and messaging.
Additional next steps include:
1. Consider how to expand the scope to different crises
2. Revisit the IA of the app, particularly the “search feature”
3. Consider some of our lower priority features, such as “Help Map” and volunteer screening, updates of personal statuses, contact lists for professional help.
Overall, we had the joy of engaging with wonderful people and heard some incredible stories, we learned the pain points of organizing and hope to continue helping the helpers.
