ATL Heroes

ATL Heroes is a system designed to reach out to the homeless who are limited in their resources to connect with essential living resources such as shelter, clothing, food, and medical care. The system will facilitate the access of information about these resources and engage the community to support this cause with resources, time, or donations

The challenge

When I moved to the city of Atlanta to study college in the downtown area, I noticed an increased number of homeless populations in the streets during my walking commute to different buildings at my school. I did not know how to best help people besides donating money, and it became an everyday routine to be surrounded by this underlying social issue. So I began to wonder how technology can aid homeless people with information and resources and decided to use this opportunity as part of a research and project to address this complex situation.

Users & Audience

We built this solution targeting mainly homeless people, specifically young individuals and minorities in Atlanta who are living without parents or guardian support and are at higher risk of physical, mental, and emotional abuse.

Team & Roles

Having had previous experience designing a native Android app from the ground up, I led a core team of 2 UI Designers (including myself), 1 UX Designer, 1 Prototype Execution role, 1 Content Strategy role, and 1 Quality Assurance role. I led a core team of 3 designers, with occasional support from internal developers. I coordinated and led all facets of design, including information architecture, user task flows, interaction, visual, product, and prototyping. I also conducted user research using personas, research papers, and surveys to address user behavior and attitudes.

Assumptions

We began researching our primary audience and understanding their needs with a Journey Map to visualize better the process that a homeless person goes through in order to accomplish a goal. We used different parameters to organize their environments, triggers, engagements and resolutions.

Meet the Users

Joseline

Joseline, a teenager who became separated from her parents at a young age, lived in the foster care system for several years and soon turned 18. She has been working a part-time minimum wage job for some time, but it only makes her enough money to pay her phone bill and personal needs. She has minimal savings and no credit or vehicle. She fears being pushed out of the system, she will be unable to maintain housing on her current income, and she wants to learn how to improve her situation before this becomes a reality.

Michael

Michael, a freshman college student, is living with their parents. His parents have very traditional values. They found out he was taking ballet classes in secret and that he was hanging out with many girls and behaving too feminine. They had no other choice than to kick him out of the house because they suspected he could be homosexual, which goes against their religious beliefs. Michael has no ID, no wallet, and no phone with him. He is only carrying a blanket, loose cash, and some clothing in his bag. Michael is walking down the streets of Atlanta, trying to find some help, but not many people are willing to assist him on his way. He was able to find some help from a guy that showed him a resourceful kiosk in the park with sufficient information to aid his situation.

Design Process

With previous research, we started to design a kiosk application for the homeless that will allow the mobility of our resources. If someone were to use our kiosk and then look for the app on their mobile device, the icon would be very recognizable as it has the same theme or colors and logo.

Blue has a calming effect to it as our primary users may be in some distress. It also is used as a sign of trust. Orange and yellow are geared more towards the volunteers that use our software. These colors are motivational and are used to inspire our volunteers to do greatness. They also bring energy and optimism for both parties using the app.

Lastly, the grey is for our text so that it is easily readable but not as harsh as black would be. The font used for the interface is clear and easy to read for all types of people who will come across the kiosk.

Takeaways

We conducted a usability testing plan to assess how effective the system is and identify areas of improvement and success. Our goal was to gather enough information by testing our prototype system to potential users interested in taking roles in different sets of scenarios related to homelessness. This process involves asking for help, volunteering services, and being involved with events in the community.

Our findings were collected from 10 participants. So far, 60% of people know local public services such as shelters, food banks, and non-profit, while 40% know a few of those services.

We also found that most users' experience with the system was friendly to use and believe this system would be beneficial if they were in desperate need of resources.

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