Safe & Sound
SERVICE DESIGN FOR SOCIAL GOOD
Project Details
If you’re homeless in New York City, the current and only way to sign up for shelter is to travel in person to an intake facility. It’s a stressful and taxing experience for everyone, especially to those who have physical and cognitive disabilities. Safe & Sound was created to tackle this problem and come up with a solution. This project was my capstone project in a design challenge during my UX certification courses.
Challenge
Looking for a homeless shelter in New York City is stressful and complicated. There is no online system in place to assist with signing up for shelter.
Goal
Provide an online tool for the homeless to easily sign up for shelter. To give advocates the ability to help the homeless sign up for services.
Target Users
- The homeless
- People about to be evicted
- Volunteers/Advocates
Project Weeks
August - October 2021
My Role
Sole UX Designer: User research, competitive analysis, wireframes, prototypes, and usability studies.
Tools
Figma
Preliminary Research
I began this project with user research in order to better understand the challenges and issues that users faced, before designing.
Research methods implemented:
1. User Interviews
I conducted interviews on 5 participants during a moderated usability study. These included members of the local NYC community, the homeless, and people who volunteer with the homeless.
I wanted to find out how NYC handles people in need of shelter. So, for the main questions I had some Q&A sessions from a couple of sources.
Sources:
- Online and user research
- Interviews with the homeless
- Interviews with NYC shelter employees
Questions & Answers:
Q: Where do people go to get help for shelter in NYC?
A: They have to travel in person to an intake shelter to get help.
Q: How can they get help?
A: There is no online process to sign up.
Q: Why is there no online process to sign up for shelter in NYC?
A: An evaluation needs to be done in-person to assess their mental and physical health. Many people have mental health issues and cognitive impairments.
Q: Do the homeless have cell phones with access to the internet?
A: They can sign up through expanded Medicaid in NYC for a free Android smartphone which includes data, talk, and text.
Q: What happens if someone is in a wheelchair — how would they get to the intake shelter?
A: NYC provides transportation to pick them up.
2. Competitive Analysis
I completed this analysis to understand how other nonprofits position themselves. It helped to inform the design process for Safe & Sound and how to best meet the users’ needs.
3. Information Architecture
I created these to show how the content is organized to help users understand where they are in Safe & Sound and where the information is located.
Sitemap
This diagram shows how the pages are prioritized, linked, and labeled.
User Flow
This is the path taken in Safe & Sound to complete a task.
Key insights I learned from the preliminary research:
Cellphones
The homeless in NYC have access to cellphones through Medicaid from the Affordable Care Act. On the street they were called “Obama phones.”
Cognitive impairments
Many of the homeless have cognitive impairments, which includes mental illness. I did not realize at first that I needed to keep this insight in mind when designing.
Process
The current sign up process for shelter in NYC is not easy to do, especially for people who are not able-bodied, since you must travel in person to get help in the first place.
User Personas
After I finished the research phase of Safe & Sound, I gathered and analyzed the findings and created personas as aggregate representations of the people I interviewed.
Lily
Lily’s Goals
To find shelter for people in need that she knows through her church group.
To use a convenient and easy online tool to start the sign up process.
Lily’s Frustrations
No ability for her to help people remotely.
Disabled individuals that she knows have a difficult time accessing the system for help and it makes her frustrated.
William
William’s Goals
To find safe and clean shelter nearby.
Have an easier time signing up for shelter by using an online system.
William’s Frustrations
Current system forces him to travel to a shelter in-person that is far away.
This makes it difficult and stressful because he is immobile and in a wheelchair from a foot amputation due to diabetes.
Ideas & Strategy
Once I began to have a clear picture who the users were and what their needs and goals were, I was able to start brainstorming strategies, insights, challenges, and any other ideas that would help the users.
1| Based on the research I conducted, I realized that creating a safe environment for the homeless to access help in finding shelter was a priority.
2| I asked myself: “How can the experience of obtaining shelter be accessible, consistent, and reliable?”
This led to the idea of access points
Community centers = local churches
Place with internet = library
Dedicated mobile app = accessible on-the-go to anyone with a cell phone
Advocates would be available to help
They can reach the homeless in person, on the spot and in the streets, and sign them up for shelter and services using the mobile app or tablet.
Design Strategies
Fact 1
According to 2018 US Census data, 15.3 million people have a cognitive disability (5.1% of the population).
Fact 2
Mental illness is a cognitive disability.
Designing for cognitive disabilities became the priority.
Readability
Larger size fonts so content is easier to read.
Clear navigation
Simple layout with obvious visual cues.
Progressive disclosure
Dividing tasks into shorter steps.
Simple steps
Complete the steps without being overwhelming.
White space
Text is easier to read when it’s visually separated.
Key Challenges
How can the cognitively disabled use the mobile app without difficulties?
Bringing down barriers
Designing simple and understandable information architecture.
Familiarity
Recognizing rather than recalling. Recognizable iconography and intuitive gestures so they do not have to learn anything new.
Quick and simple
A simple, linear process in the user flow allows for quick on-the-go usage.
Design Phase
Now that I had my user research completed, with insights into who the users were and what their goals were, I began creating digital wireframes in Figma and thinking through the preliminary flow. I had many iterations before moving on to prototypes.
Mobile Wireframes
Testing the Product
After completing the wireframes and lo-fidelity designs, the next step was to test them on users. I created a research plan, usability study, and an analysis of those results. The overall goal was to figure out if users could complete the core tasks within the Safe & Sound prototype without difficulty.
Research Study Results
Signing up
40% of users had questions during the sign up process. People looking for shelter need a simple sign up experience with larger font sizes.
Gender
20% of users needed clarification about choices in gender identity. An explanation was included to prevent confusion.
Appointments
Appointment page was unnecessary because shelters are open 7 days/week, 24 hours/day.
Transportation
Transportation options needed to be offered to the homeless during the sign up process. They need to be taken to an intake shelter to finalize the process.
Housing
Offers of assistance for permanent housing should be made available and included in the list of services.
Design Iterations: from Lo-Fi to Hi-Fi designs
Designing for cognitive disabilities
This is an example of how I applied my designs to incorporate cognitive disablities. There is a curb cut effect in where these features benefit everybody.
Hi-Fidelity Design
After I completed the usability study, I was able to synthesize the data and iterated on my designs. These hi-fidelity designs reflect Safe & Sound’s final product and includes visual elements, navigation, and interactive details.
Mockups
The Solution
Find a shelter
After incorporating design strategies for cognitive impairments, the homeless could now quickly find shelter options without difficulty. All buttons are clearly labeled, explanations on screens are given in simple-to-understand language, affordances are straightforward and easily understood by the users.
Sign up process
After many design iterations and implementing a clear linear process, Advocates could now easily help the homeless sign up for shelter and services. In addition, the homeless could also sign themselves up quickly for shelter. Transportation options are given in a clear manner at the end of the process for those who are unable to travel to the intake shelter on their own.
Style Guide
Conclusions
What I learned:
- When designing for users with cognitive disabilities it’s important to keep in mind how the layout, structure, and elements are presented.
- Designing across different devices helped me understand how to use consistent and continuous design patterns to keep the experience familiar to users.
- Many of the homeless in NYC have access to the internet and technology by positioning themselves outside near buildings with free wifi.
- NYC shelters could really help the homeless by granting free wifi in their shelters across the city. Right now there is no internet.
Next steps if I had more time:
- Continue to test the prototypes on users and iterate on the designs.
- Research more on statistics of how the homeless in NYC use technology and the internet, and how those factors could positively influence social and health outcomes.
- Look into other major cities in the U.S. if any similar online shelter resource is available, and what those outcomes are.
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