Empowering Independence for Care Leavers.
Background
Project type: bootcamp case study (June 2023 - 3 weeks)
Role: Product Designer
Brief: create an app, for those who have recently left care, that aims to reduce pressures associated with homelessness.
Deliverables: 3 app screens (home and 2 other screens)
Design Process:
Discover - Understand the Problem
Define - Define the Problem
Develop - Develop Possible Solutions
Deliver - Choose and Develop the Solution
The Problem
33% of care leavers become homeless within the first two years of leaving care.
Moving out is a difficult process on its own. Now imagine you’re moving out entirely on your own, to an unfamiliar place, without the safety net of a family or a support system to fall back on. Sounds daunting, right? This is what many young people have to deal with when they’re about to leave care system.
Some of the reasons why care leavers end up homeless include:
Leaving the care system too abruptly
Moving to an unfamiliar area
Not having the necessary life skills (such as cooking/financial skills) to live independently.
An app tailored towards care leavers to combat the above reasons could be a powerful solution in reducing the number of care leavers becoming homeless. The app could help guide the care leaver during their transition to independent living by providing local resources and life skills lessons to instil confidence into the care leaver.
Competitor Analysis
Got the info but not the looks.
A competitor analysis was conducted to identify the strengths and weaknesses of competitor apps.
The apps, that I included in my competitor analysis, include the majority of the key information a care leaver would find useful during their transition to independent living. However, both the UI and UX of these apps are VERY outdated, resulting in a difficult user experience trying to navigate the app to find particular information.
User Research
“I think I can do everything by myself, when in fact I might need help”
The two main questions I asked during these interviews were:
How did you [the user] find the transition from leaving care to independent living?
If there was an app that could help make the transition easier; what features would you like to see?
Having the users retrospectively reflect, gave me a personal insight into their feelings and thought process during their transition from care to independent living. Asking the users what features they would like to see (in an app catered towards them) helped ensure that any solutions I design will solve the target users problem as well as meeting the brief.
Empathy Map & User Persona
An empathy map and user persona was created from the information collected from my previous desk research and user interviews. This was done to gain a deeper understanding of my target group and help me design solutions that would meet the targets users needs and preferences.
Ideation
Process
Mind map - brainstorming ideas of features that could be included in the app.
Site map - visualising the information architecture of the app.
Crazy 8s - brainstorming possible page layouts.
As this was a case study, the ideation phase was completed in isolation. If this was an actual project, I would get the product managers, engineers and if possible the target users involved in the ideation phase.
Mind Map
Site Map
Crazy 8s
Wireframes
Changes made to the design
Some changes I made whilst moving from my mid-fidelity to high-fidelity wireframes. Most of these changes were made to aid accessibility and improve the flow and look of the app.
The Final Solution
A digital bank of information to help care leavers during their transition to independent living.
Style Guide
Measuring Success
To measure the success of the app I designed, the following metrics could be considered:
App reviews - reviewing user feedback can provide insights into the overall user experience of the app and help identify areas of improvement or additional features users feel should be added to the app.
User engagement - tracking metrics such as login frequency and session duration can show whether the users are actively interacting with the app.
Number of care leavers becoming homeless after 2 years - a long-term success measure which can determine whether the app succeeded in its core mission of reducing the number of care-leavers becoming homeless.
Reflection
Dark mode - for this case study I decided to design in “dark mode” and realised that it’s not as simple as I first thought. Not relying on shadows to indicate depth was slightly difficult.
User flows - for future projects I would like to create more user flows on the other journeys a user may take on the app. This will aid my insights on what a user does whilst navigating the app and thus designing pages in response to that.
Accessibility - whilst putting together this page I realised I didn’t add any text under the “quick search” icons in the map page. Adding text would aid accessibility and will be something I keep at the forefront for future projects.
Project planning - my obsession with google calendar saved me yet again! I did well to plan and deliver this case study by the deadline whilst also working a (physically and mentally demanding) full-time job.