UX Researcher, UX Designer, Product Strategy
User Research, User Interview, Observational Study, Affinity Diagrams, Sketch, Prototypes
Figma, Miro, HTML, CSS, JavaScript
5 Months
Ellia Yang, Eichel Choi, Anqi Chen, Annie Woo
For our HCI capstone project, we partnered with CLASS, a nonprofit in Pittsburgh, PA, that runs a Structured Day Program for individuals with TBI.
We designed a solution that would reduce staff burden by consolidating participant information, empower participants to engage with their goals and activities, and ensure accessibility for a wide range of cognitive abilities.
CLASS is a nonprofit organization that helps individuals with disabilities and older adults live independently in their communities and achieve their goals. Community plays a vital role in the rehabilitation and growth process for individuals with cognitive impairments and motor disabilities, which is exactly what CLASS facilitates.
The goal of our project, given to us by our client, was to research and develop a potential solution that would help any program at CLASS. We were given a very broad scope with seemingly unlimited directions to take. So our first step was to narrow our focus area.
We began with extensive research to understand the daily challenges faced by CLASS staff and the unique needs of TBI participants.
Inefficiency in backend processes reduces staff-to-participant engagement. Mapping our the user journey offered a clearer picture of how the staff and participants interact in the current system.
So how do we contextualize these pain points and research insights?
When thinking about what a prototype would look like, we first considered some questions the prototype should be able to answer. How might a prototype...
To bridge the gap between our research insights and prototyping, we decided to conduct a co-design activity using a card-sorting exercise.
We conducted the activity with 4 TBI participants and 2 CLASS staff members, and created two card sets, one for staff and another for participants with a total of 34 cards.
Based on our research insights and card sorting exercise, we developed initial lo-fi prototypes to test our core concepts.
We conducted usability testing with our lo-fi prototypes to understand which features resonated most with both user groups.
Need to know activities beforehand
Staff appreciate having activity suggestions
Attendance can be unreliable
Want to share their achievements
Prefer large font and color customization
Participants arrive at different times
Participant logs for staff are helpful to reference periodically to help with handling activities or personal and social interactions.
Staff need a way to track past activities and get goal-based suggestions.
Staff oversight on attendance is important. Staff should be able to view crucial information about participants.
It is important to keep in mind the level of support to determine activities based on feasibility.
Increased staff-participant engagement through personalized activity suggestions
Participants can monitor their progress and achievements independently
Streamlined planning and information management for better workflow
"It's good that I can see recent activities just so I can plan what I should do next."
- Staff S"I really like choosing activities that I want to do today."
- Participant G"The skills area and goals look really good - straight from the participant skills assessment."
- Staff SHaving spoken to the participants and hearing their own individual goals, I realized how important it is to give people autonomy through design, especially when their voices are not always heard. This project shifted my perspective on who the 'user' really is in complex systems and sometimes the most impactful design work happens behind the scenes, empowering the people who directly support those who need it most.
I would want to run more user testing with the most refined coded prototype specifically to test metrics on staff time spent planning and researching daily activities. I would love to help with the implementation of the backend, especially because the assistive technology coordinator we were working with, Rebekah, emphasized how difficult it is to hand off to an external software specialist. Creating a more robust prototype would allow for staff to use the prototype more readily while the final deliverable is completed.