Home / Room

This was a product I worked on with my mentor, Chelsae Blackman, through AIGA DC’s SHINE mentorship program. I was tasked with tackling a real social issue and building a product solution based on the problem we found through through authentic testing and research. The subject area I chose was on immigration and immigrant rights.

The Goal

I wanted to create a useful resource for first-generation immigrants in the Washington, DC metropolitan area. There are milestones and barriers that first-generation immigrants face that we may not be aware of, so we made sure to identify the problem after we dedicated time to research the landscape.

In short, we don’t know what we don’t know. I didn’t want to assume what I thought the problem was, and create something that solves nothing.

Assumptions

Instead of shying away from all of my assumptions, I wanted to document them so that I could be aware of them and use research and data to find them either valid, false, or somewhere in between. My reasoning being that I wanted to be explicit with any preconceived notions I may have, rather than letting them sit and linger in the back of my mind.

My first assumption was that there were not enough resources for first-generation immigrants, such as how to obtain citizenship and knowing one’s rights.

Another assumption I had was that we needed to create a native application that was fully customizable to the user’s profile, so that users only get the information they need, and none of the overwhelming information they don’t need.

The Process

First, I listed a couple of products our project could be, both if we had an unlimited budget and no budget at all. Then, I did a competitive analysis of digital resources available today that currently services immigrants on a nationwide scale and cross-referenced the main three resources. Lastly, I created a list of features I would like to include in my product and prioritized them based on features that were a “need-to-have” versus a “nice-to-have.”

Interviews

At the beginning of my journey, I started with three proto-personas based on my target audience and assumed their motivations. This process, however, helped me think about my own assumptions and become more aware of my biases and how limiting they can be. Even though both of my parents are first-generation immigrants and I have witnessed many of the struggles they have faced, I cannot pretend that those struggles are my own lived experiences. My experiences may be similar but they are not the same.

The only way to get to the root of the issues that my target audience faced was to reach out and speak to real people with authentic experiences. I reached out to several people within my defined target group and spoke in person about their background and their journey. I created an interview script that was objective, but made sure to allow space for interviewees to share experiences that were not on the script. Face-to-face interactions led us to discover insights that were previously overlooked.

Insights

The people I interviewed all had varied backgrounds and journeys, but one of the major themes we came across was the importance of a community’s support in helping navigate legal documents, secure livelihood, and assistance in their day-to-day routine.

The main issue was not the lack of resources really, but the difficulty in locating these resources and being able to understand the information.

Solution

With that information, I decided to make a digital product that makes it simple to locate and navigate through all of the information that is already available, by supporting existing organizations, not competing against them.

Access was key for this product. According to my initial assumptions, I believed a native application that was fully customized to the user would better serve my target audience’s needs. The insights from my research showed that a plurality of my audience live very full, busy lives. They do not always have access to smartphones or non-public devices, and therefore, the ability to readily access the information they need online was imperative for Home / Room.

Our primary focus was to alleviate the stress of not knowing what one needs to know, as well as not being able to fully understand the bigger picture beyond legal jargon. One major capability I wanted to include the product was having the page be vetted and available in common languages, such as Spanish, but allowing the page be translated using Google Translate baked into the page (adding a note that the feature should be used with discretion since it has not been vetted for translation accuracy). We wanted to empower our audiences to be able to navigate the resource at a high-level overview with independence and autonomy.