A design that connects people in need with people who want to help
App and web flow to ID and help homeless in the community
I designed an app and a responsive website to identify and help homeless in the community to see what one might look like.
The app and mobile site would allow people who want to help people they see in need in the community to connect with all the many services and resources available to them through an alert system that anyone could use to share information with community service agencies.
Project Duration: July 2021
Role: Lead UX Designer, UX Researcher, UX Writer and UI Designer.
Tools Used: Adobe XD, Google Sheets, Google Forms, paper
The Problem
I discovered that people often want to help others they see in need but don't know how or who to call in the community and are usually driving away from an area when they notice someone in need.
The Solution
The solution was to create an app and mobile site that would allow people to easily share the locations of people in need with people in the community who wanted to help.
The Impact
Users would be able to help people directly from their phones increasing alerts to agencies by more than 100 %. Normally people would have to wait until they returned home, then go online and find an agency's contact details severely reducing the chance that a report would be made at all. People testing the responsive website told me that they wished this design was real.
The Research
I interviewed people who live in communities with homeless populations and see people in need who are often holding signs outside stores, etc.
I interviewed people as well as asked people to complete surveys.
All people said they wanted to help but the reasons why they don't were surprising.
Why People Don't Help
People often want to help others they see in need but don't know how or who to call in the community.
A common issue among users was that people in need were often spotted while the user was driving away and it was too late to help in person.
Other people said they wanted to help but were afraid of interacting with strangers or would rather donate money to an organization that could actually help the person become self-sufficient so that they would not have to live on the street and ask strangers for money.
I created empathy maps and identified pain points before generating personas, user stories and user journey maps to focus brainstorming sessions. I also developed problem statements and conducted a competitive audit of direct and indirect competitors before coming up with a solution that would allow people to quickly alert community service workers to homeless people in need.
The User
As a result of my research, I found two distinct user groups. One group of users would be more likely to use the mobile app or mobile responsive website and a second desktop user group. People in the first group would be more likely to help right away and want to share locations of people as they were out and about in the community and the second group would be more likely to look up information on resources from home and then donate money to groups that are serving the homeless population. This influenced my designs because I added additional screens on the responsive website allowing people to learn where to make donations.
Helping on the go
People interviewed said they are often driving away from a parking lot when they see others in need so it's hard to help in the moment. Others didn't feel comfortable interacting with a stranger in person. An app or mobile site with location services could send the location to community agencies with minimal effort on the part of the user or users could visit the responsive website from home or via mobile phones. Then people trained to help could connect with people who need it.
Quick and easy
Users could add a description or just hit submit and share a location on the app or mobile site. Community service workers could also use the app in their work when identifying new homeless camps or coming across new people in need.
Ideation
I used Crazy Eights to come up with solutions to the problem. I picked my favorite solutions and began sketching wireframes for a mobile app after developing information architecture.
Wireframes
I wanted to make the design very simple so people could just open the app, verify their location and then share any important information. My first round prototype confused some users so I made some changes including adding a navigation bar and editing the locater map by using standard map icons.
User Testing
Seven participants tested the app/site in person and remotely. In initial tests the layout of the screen wasn't reliable from device to device so I added a path back home from a navigation bar. The search icon for the map threw some testers off so I replaced it with a standard icon that users expected.
Revised screens
I eliminated the home button and added a navigation bar in subsequent iterations because the navigation bar could be fixed and then a path back home would always be on the screen no matter what device people were using.
High Fidelity
In testing, some users said a single description box could be overwhelming if people didn't know what to say so I changed the inputs into a guided form. However filling out the form remained optional.
Information entered into the app or site would be sent to a database similar to a spreadsheet that would alert community service workers when changes were made. The community service workers could then login and see where reports had been made and add information after contacting people who needed help and gather data on their needs and connect them with services in the area. There are so many agencies that want to help and this site could connect them so efforts are use more efficiently.
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