I participated in this design project for social innovation from beginning to end, and what I found most interesting is how empathy and research can apply to a design that solves the problem. I have practiced Design Thinking skills during the whole process, also created a project video. On my own, I have revamped the design with a focus on key elements of UX design.
OUTCOME:
1. Understand the current issues with caregivers, from a policy, finance, family, and work-life balance point of view.
2. Conduct stakeholder research (especially the users) to gain their pain points and redefine the problem.
3. Generate feasible ideas and validate potential design solutions.
4. The estimated benefits of the design and reflections on the overall process.
PROBLEM STATEMENT:
Caregivers undergo enormous stress emotionally and mentally – the care-related resources are searchable online, but the process is time-consuming, difficult to understand, and very confusing. So we need not only to reduce their stress but also to create a caregiver-friendly environment.
EXPECTED BENEFITS:
In the short term, we expect this website to significantly reduce the caregiver’s stress, increase the caregiver’s general health quality, and improve service usage efficiency for all different service providers. And in the long term, the benefits would be to improve the caregiver’s quality of life, prevent the possibility of committing suicide, and indirectly reduce the government’s relevant expenditures.
We want to understand these caregiver issues globally, locally, statistically, and most importantly personally. With an aging population increasing, we can expect demand for caregivers to rise, along with their stress levels. Under this general challenge, we see that caregivers need a strong support system and a more friendly environment.
RESEARCH:
USER RESEARCH:
USER PAIN POINTS:
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The information channel is narrow – the access channel is limited, and the information is biased towards one side.
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Information is scattered – the required information is too large, scattered across all platforms, and information access lacks a user-centric mindset.
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Lack of awareness and motivation – for early preparation, and anxiety in the face of huge amounts of information.
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Service providers are not connected – caregivers need to understand each provider’s information in different organizations through different channels.
IDEATE:
After user interviews, research, and brainstorming, we wanted to address the problem of complex and messy information for caregivers, so we designed a web platform to provide one-stop information on the most important issues faced by caregivers. The information is classified into categories, simple and easy to use.
LOW FIDELITY PROTOTYPE:
We decided to provide a one-stop information platform, which is convenient and easy to use, information is divided into categories, simple, clear, and easy to understand.
The web’s core content includes a care planning guide, resource search map, caregiver exchange forum, and calendar, enabling caregivers to not only support themselves but also others, to build a caregiver-friendly environment that is responsive to the needs of the caregiver and the community.
My team members created this first version website demo to present our work and get feedback from others, and much of the teamwork has been done. Later, I revamped the website and integrated it with feedback from user testing and UX elements to make it more vivid and user-friendly.
USER TESTING:
I have listed the following test tasks for users to see whether they can accomplish those tasks and what problems they may have.
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Onboarding as a caregiver.
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View the care guide
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Search for services at a certain location.
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Find a service provider with the details
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Engage with the forum
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Check the appointment date
INSIGHTS:
4 out of 5 users had problems with ‘My calendar’, said it didn’t correspond with the meaning, and 3 out of 5 users found the display option for ‘Resources map’ was confusing to choose and they were unable to see each option’s results. So I will focus on those two issues and iterate them in my new website design based on the user’s feedback.
FINAL DESIGN
I redesigned the website and made it more interactive, combing the user pain points and findings from user testing, and hopefully tapping into users’ minds that this website is what they are looking for. After all, the process is never-ending and it needs constant improvement.
HOMEPAGE
REFLECTION:
The biggest takeaway:
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Research and empathy can greatly influence outcomes, not only in gathering useful insights but also when creating and validating design logic.
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Interacting with real users is far more important to the whole project and also to improving humanity within the team.
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Ideas come naturally once I put myself in their situation and feel what they feel.
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User testing is as important as user research – it helps me to get insightful feedback also to integrate them into the design.
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Teamwork can level up understanding and bring out ideas very efficiently and avoid a certain bias.
In the first ideation, I did not want to make it personal for privacy issues, but users need to engage with the calendar function, so I created a personal place for them to engage and increase ownership as well. Furthermore, this website is an ideal model where caregivers can find any info they need, but I have to admit that the info is too broad to include everything. However, I believe that nothing is perfect and the only thing we can do is to iterate continuously and take the next step onwards.