Company: Further

Role: Product Design, UI Design, Content Design,

Duration: 5 Weeks

Team: Ivy Ouyang | Austin Bedford (Project Mgmt, Product Design)

Challenges

Danielle Malik, design lead at Futuredraft, selected us for our deep understandings of oppression due to the one thing we all have in common: our marginalized ethnicity. As designers with diverse backgrounds, we find errors within structures quickly because we’ve observed the systemic flaws that damage human beings since we were born. This awareness and desire to question current frameworks allows us to create stronger foundations for the future that won’t be at the expense of human lives.

Overview

In this 5 week sprint, my team and I generated a usable and safe experience that tracks acts of violence against one’s identity to reveal and document truths about the frequency of hate crimes in modernized and rural cities. Careful consideration of stakeholder expectations and complexities of individual human needs led to the creation of a product that connected, supported, and informed individuals experiencing marginalized trauma.

Problem

A standard system that ensures the safety of people who are targeted for their identity doesn’t exist. Targeted individuals, as well as witnesses to a crime, have little to no support or resources to respond to an incident safely. Additionally, there is no central database that makes the severity of these issues visible, thus inhibiting progress toward actionable change.

We believe that by providing a digital service for safety, visibility and support, we will reduce discriminatory acts and empower targeted communities. Marginalized individuals experience hate crimes at a higher rate than reported. There are low accountability efforts when these incidents are reported to authorities. Further is designed be a pathway to future healing and true data for humans experiencing acts of violence against their identity.

Research

With stakeholder expectations in mind, we assessed hours of user interviews, surveys, and business analysis to identify high level qualitative needs for people experiencing traumatic incidents against their identity:

Analyzing the lifecycle of a hate crime revealed that we could provide impactful empowerment by focusing on the moment after people have experienced trauma. While trying to prevent an incident could have various positive effects, focusing on support, safety and building community is more likely to have a generative, healing impact in the long run.

Stakeholder Needs

As we synthesized our research, it was crucial to remain aware of what stakeholders were envisioning for Further. Bridging stakeholder and user needs became possible when it was understood that the stakeholder goal was to create a way to collect data for an incident tracking map, as well as a storytelling channel for humans who have been targeted.

I put together an approachable digital structure that informs and provides transparency for humans interacting with Further. This compact data network will lead to an experience people cognitively digest easily, leading to continual app engagement.

I sketched early UI concepts, interactions, and solutions to gain a deeper understanding of what solutions might be useful to people experiencing hate crimes. Thanks to my rough sketches, were able to implement a usable UI design.

Form Design

Requesting that individuals recount trauma became a source of friction. In response, I drafted a form that is clear, comfortable, and well-paced for people sharing their experiences. I implemented warm colors, simple language, and single question layout design to make the form experience as effortless as possible.

As a team, we conversed with each other in order to understand the type of natural language that might be used in a situation like this. This role play was an important step in our process toward creating transparency and a sense of understanding within the language. This wording used creates a casual tone that is easier for people to interact with and read quickly under stressful circumstances. 

When establishing our style system I had accessibility, warm color tones, and language fitted with a human touch in mind. I chose the Material Design system font Roboto as our main typeface so app load speed would be increased as well as maintaining simplicity for software engineers. We started with an IOS UI, but will work with an Android UI in the future to keep affordability and accessibility a priority.

We received validations on elements such as color, language, and layout design. Our team was informed that our design was useful and would lead to avenues of healing. On the other hand, testers felt some elements were inconsistent with our main objective.

Moving forward I would like to implement better filtering and searching options for Services, create an onboarding flow to explain what Further is about and revisit the Stories page. In these 5 weeks, we were able to achieve thoughtful results while always considering the people we are serving. Trauma healing is an ongoing process, so continued ideation on these elements to keep Further growing with its user base is essential.

Thoughtfulness and intent were fundamental in designing Further. My intention was to help systematically oppressed groups solve problems within a market where profit typically rules technical advancement and ingenuity. By crafting a product that engages human beings through language and resources, we provide people with the means necessary to empower themselves in times of crisis. As a design team, all three of us come from historically marginalized backgrounds, making us apt to create this invaluable tool that revitalizes and pushes society further.