Human-Centered Design Workshop
Workshop in Washington D.C.
My team and I explored how to support citizens who are returning to the community after being incarcerated. Seven citizens shared their work through the DC Aspire to Entrepreneurship program, which helps Returning Citizens start and grow their own businesses.
The Challenge
How can UX Designers and Returning Citizen entrepreneurs help each other achieve the citizens' goals? For the UX workshop, we have 7 teams of 4 UX Designers and 1 citizen; and 6 facilitators.
Interview Questions for the Returning Citizens
What motivated you to start a business?
What keeps you motivated?
What obstacles do you face?
How do you overcome obstacles and challenges?
What resources would help?
What does success look like?
How do you find resources?
What mistakes have you made?
What are three important things for UX Designers to know?
How can your expertise help the UX Designers?
Do you have a contingency plan?
Interview Questions for the UX Designer
What are your goals?
What is success?
What skills or resources do you bring to the table?
What is your motivation?
What are your obstacles to participation?
How does your expertise help?
What are three important things for
the Returning Citizen to know?
Empathy Map for the UX Designer
What were the Returning Citizens thinking?
As we reviewed our interview notes, we tried to see the world from their perspective.
Empathy Map for the Returning Citizen
What do you think they were feeling?
What were the Returning Citizens thinking?
What do you think they were feeling?
What did they say that stood out?
What did they talk about doing?
The persona of the Returning Citizen
We used an empathy map to help us think about key experiences and emotions Returning Citizens have, what they really need, and which solutions will meet those needs.
The persona of the UX Designer
We reviewed fourteen empathy maps. Each persona was a mashup of either Returning Citizens or UX Designers. We resisted the urge to base a persona off of one person.
Returning Citizens' Job to be Done.
Below is just a subset of the Work to be Done section.
Returning Citizens' desired outcomes
Functional:
Connecting Returning Citizens to resources.
Emotional:
Being successful and getting respect from the community.
Defining success
Returning Citizens are able to connect to and receive the resources they need.
The business makes money. The community purchases its products.
Outcomes to avoid
Resources are unavailable.
The business is not making money. The community stays away
UX Designers' Job to be Done.
UX Designers' desired outcomes
Functional:
Help Returning Citizens achieve a seamless transition to independence.
Emotional:
Feeling you helped the community by helping Returning Citizens become successful and independent.
Defining success
Returning Citizens are able to connect to and receive resources they need.
The Returning Citizens business makes money. The community purchases its products.
Outcomes to avoid
Letting emotions distract from the issue at hand.
All the work doesn't help the Returning Citizens accomplish their goals.
Design Principles
• Our project will foster trust between the community and the Returning Citizens.
• Our product will promote independence for the Returning Citizens.
• Our product will connect the Returning Citizens to resources.
Reframe the Challenge
1. Gallery Walk
2. Record Insights
3. "How Might We" Questions
How might we bridge the community and Returning Citizens?
How might we guide the Returning Citizens to resources?
How might we guide the Returning Citizens to independence?
Ideate and Co-Create
We added different conditions into the mix. Examples: What if Beyonce or Jared Spool were helping the Returning Citizens to start a business? What if Pixar or Black Lives Matter designed a UX mentoring program? After randomly combining pairings, we voted on a solution.
The Solution
A mentorship program with community meetings to give Returning Citizens access to resources and mentors.
Build And Test
We mapped a journey to show experiences of Returning Citizens' interactions with the solution.
After reviewing our journey map, we made our solution a reality with a prototype.
Test - We had the other teams review our prototypes, and took notes.
Issues - How do mentors and Returning Citizens get matched?
Issues - How long is the mentorship program?
Refine - We improved our prototype by having Returning Citizens and mentors fill out a form as they enter a community meeting.
Refine - We made the mentorship program six months long.
The Pitch
When Returning Citizens enter society, they go into halfway houses. They have no Internet access. They are not given information on resources. We propose the formation of a pilot 6-month mentorship program in which mentors provide such information. We plan to have posters, in the halfway houses, which advertise the mentorship program and its telephone number. Returning Citizens would call it to find out about the next community meeting. When attending a meeting, they would fill out forms to be matched with mentors. By the end of the mentorship program, Returning Citizens would be on their way to being independent, successful, and advocates for the program.
