PinHELP

Sole UX Designer

4 Weeks

Social Good App

Research

PinHELP is an accessible, city-wide touchscreen network designed to be a lifeline for individuals in need of immediate assistance. It provides a simple and intuitive interface to quickly locate and navigate to critical resources.

Problem

Individuals experiencing homelessness or facing crises often struggle to access essential services. They are often in vulnerable situations, facing immediate needs for shelter, food, and support, but lack easy access to this critical information.

Goal

Our goal is to provide a simple, accessible, and intuitive way for vulnerable individuals to quickly locate and navigate to essential services within their immediate vicinity.

User Research

To deeply understand the challenges, needs, and requirements of individuals seeking essential services, I conducted user research for this project. My primary goal was to gain valuable insights into the lived experiences and perspectives of our target users to inform the design of the PinHELP system effectively.

We identified several key pain points and challenges:

Difficulty Locating Information: Users struggle to find reliable and accessible information about available shelter, food banks, and other essential services, especially when facing immediate crises.
Navigational Uncertainty: Individuals often face challenges in understanding complex directions or navigating unfamiliar areas to reach necessary resources.
Fear and Vulnerability: The process of seeking help can be emotionally challenging, with individuals experiencing feelings of vulnerability and apprehension.
Stigma and Privacy Concerns: Individuals may feel a sense of stigma associated with needing to access certain services, and they are often concerned about their privacy and the confidentiality of their situation.

I utilized qualitative research methodologies for this project. Due to time constraints and the need for in-depth understanding of user behaviors and motivations, qualitative methods were the most appropriate choice.

Users

As the sole UX Designer on this project, I was responsible for leading and driving the entire user-centered design process, which means:

Conducted user research to understand the needs and challenges of vulnerable individuals.
Defined the core problem and provided key insights that informed the ideation phase.
Developed personas, user journeys, empathy maps, and user flows to represent and understand the target users.
Led the visual design process, creating low-fidelity and high-fidelity wireframes, interactive prototypes, and facilitating user testing sessions.

Meet Sara who is a tech-savvy, vulnerable 17-year-old who needs immediate and discreet access to safe shelter and navigation assistance because she is fleeing an abusive home and requires a reliable, accessible system to locate and reach essential services without relying on prior digital literacy or attracting unwanted attention.

Meet John who is a 62-year-old, recently homeless individual with physical limitations and limited digital literacy who needs to easily locate and access essential services (food, medication, shelter) because he struggles with navigation, complex information, and feels isolated, hindering his ability to meet his basic needs and manage his health.

User journey map

By creating a user journey map, I aimed to illustrate the process of how Sarah Miller behaves, feels, and what she thinks while accomplishing her goal of finding safe shelter using the PinHELP system. This helps to address potential pain points and identify opportunities for moments of reassurance and support.

By creating user journey maps, I wanted to illustrate the process of how John Walker behaves, feels, and what he thinks while accomplishing his goals to address pain points or provide moments of delight using the PinHELP system. This helps us understand a different user's perspective and ensure the system meets a broader range of needs.

Design Wireframes

Begun with creating a user flow:

Paper Wireframes

Focusing on the core features identified during user research, I sketched the first wireframes using pen and paper.

Digital Wireframes

After numerous rounds of revisions, I have finally created wireframes that perfectly capture the user flow and address the needs of our users.

You can view the Portrait Lo-fi Prototype here.

You can view the Landscape Lo-fi Prototype here.

Design Mockups

Started by creating a "Sticker Sheet":

Usability study: findings

Following the initial low-fidelity prototyping, I conducted a usability study to gather valuable feedback on the PinHELP system. Now, let's delve into the key findings from this testing phase and identify the specific areas where design improvements are needed.

Here are the findings from the study:

Iterating on Design

Based on insights from the usability studies, I applied design changes.

Hi-Fi Prototype

Building upon the insights gained from the usability study and the refined wireframes, I then focused on creating the high-fidelity prototype. The goal was to develop a final design that was not only simple and intuitive but also visually engaging and trustworthy.