Unlocking
Communities
.png)
Role: Lead UX Designer
​
Team: Two front-end developers, one front-end developer, one data analyst, one UX assistant
Timeline: 60 hours
Overview
Unlocking Communities is a non-profit dedicated to empowering Haitian individuals and communities help realize their potential through entrepreneurship. Hack-a-thon teams were asked to create a new Android application for the Samsung Galaxy Tablet that better served their Haitian entrepreneurs and field managers.
The Problem
Unlocking Communities provides Haitian entrepreneurs with the education and tools to sell sustainable products, two of those being water filters and clean-burning stoves. The main issue was in the complexity of Unlocking Communities’ current digital inventory system provided to Haitian entrepreneurs to track their sales. This system was overly intricate for small-scale businesses and not compatible with the digital divide in Haiti.
​
Within the 60 hours, we were able to conduct primary research in a group Q&A session with two entrepreneurs in Haiti and maintained ongoing dialogue with the Director of Operations. Additionally, I delved into secondary research on Haitian culture and the existing levels of literacy, digital literacy, and internet access.
​
Key Findings: Issues with Current Application
-
The current application, TaroWorks, is an American company designed for advanced data collection, monitoring, and analysis. Unlocking Communities' entrepreneurs are running much smaller-scale businesses than the application was made for, so the dashboard, much less options, it provides proved to be challenging, distracting, and inefficient.
-
The current application is unable to store long-form data, like the required Sales Contracts used by entrepreneurs, when not connected to the internet. For Haiti, this was detrimental and lead to entrepreneurs carrying around a paper stack of contracts and then having to manually input the information later. Additionally, the application, at the level Unlocking Communities was at, did not offer input customization leading to mismatched information. ​
​
Key Findings: Haiti Literacy and Access
-
Digital Literacy Levels: the digital literacy rate in Haiti is the lowest in the Western Hemisphere at just 11%, with it coming down to just 1% in rural Haiti.
-
Internet Access: Only 41% of Haiti has the access to the internet, compared to our 97% in the States.
-
Literacy Levels: only 60% of Haitian adults are able to read and write.
Design Considerations
Four Key Actions
We uncovered that there are only four key actions entrepreneurs need to take on a daily basis:
-
New sale
-
Inventory Count
-
Sales History
-
Sales Trends
Link Sales Contract to Inventory
A simple way to increase efficiency and decrease number of clicks for the entrepreneurs was linking the number of products bought in the Sales Contract directly to the inventory counts.
However, we also had to take into consideration entrepreneurs who would rather use the paper sales contracts.*
Offline Data Storage
The new application would not only have to store long form data, it would also need to be able to make simple subtractions from the inventory.
Our data analyst worked to uncover different barriers in the collection, which informed the design of the final digital Sales Contract.
Direct Graphics & CTAs
When learning about the digital literacy and access of Haitians, I discovered best-practices in designing for lower literacy and digital literacy levels. Many of these involve lowering the standard level of reading from a 6th grade level to a kindergarten level, using large font, literal graphics, and a simple interface.
*One of the most time consuming parts of our process was figuring out how to accommodate both digital and paper contracts. Due to the lack of internet connectivity, document scanners were either not an option, or extremely expensive to configure. The Data Analyst and I worked together to come up with different solutions, but landed on a simple solution: allow users who would prefer to keep the current process to continue their same process: manually enter the information into the sales contract.
The Solution
With over half our time already gone with preliminary research, identifying key actions, and finding key issues in the current processes, we only had about ten hours to create low-fidelity wire frames, brief them with the development team, and redesign mid-fidelity wires and pass-off to our front-developer in the final hours. While the rest of the team was creating a working product, I worked to finalize the mid-fidelity wires with stand-in content and additional frames for prototyping and the final presentation.
Below are key wires of the final, mid-fidelity prototype. View the full prototype here
​
The first frames show the four key interactions immediately available on the homepage, along with clear graphics showcasing clearly differentiated inventories, a simple home notification center for easy inventory management, and an obvious path to create a new sale--which opens to a digital sales contract linked to inventory counts.
The next few frames show the following short flows users take from the homepage: view inventory, view past sales, the notification center, and the menu implemented for mainly administrative reasons (logout, change communities when re-distributing tablets). You'll see we have an "edit inventory" option as a last-resort for entrepreneurs to be able to continue to track inventory and make accurate sales, even in the case of complete failure of the offline link from Sales Contract to Inventory.
Win & Summary
Ultimately, after hearing considerations from the developers and data analyst, we were able to create a low-fidelity product that properly addressed the entrepreneurs needs and the company's resources. Our team won the Android-specific competition (other teams designed for entrepreneurs in Apple-dominant communities) as well as the overall competition.
​
The judges and company gave positive feedback on the additional research our team did into literacy levels and access, offline data storage and management, and ability to produce a working product within 60 hours. I am extremely proud of my work in this project, especially being the lead UX designer, but I would not have won this hack-a-thon on UX design alone. Collaborating with a seasoned Data Analyst who had background in front-end development gave our team a unique edge in an analyst that could talk developer. Having three extremely talented developers to explain the limitations of our product, their time, and my vision leveled up my understanding of product creation to a new level.
​
Overall, designing for marginalized users is something I have always been passionate about. Diving into low literacy and digital literacy levels allowed me to learn a new side of user experience I never would have experienced myself as a user. I am extremely grateful for Unlocking Communities' time and feedback, and this event, as it propelled me into becoming an accessibility specialist as a UX Strategist at EVERSANA.
Get a Quote
This is a Paragraph. Click on "Edit Text" or double click on the text box to start editing the content.