Good Samaritans On the Go
Designing a Hybrid, Multi-touchpoint Service
OVERVIEWProblem
A significant demographic of adults, particularly those aged 60 and above, live alone and have limited social networks. In instances of post-surgery recovery or when living with chronic illnesses, these individuals require support for their daily activities.
Outcome
My team designed a hybrid, multi-touchpoint service that supports individuals in post-surgery recovery or living with chronic illness, especially those lacking strong social networks, by facilitating access to assistance and care not covered by outpatient services.
PROJECTGood Samaritans on the Go
a service that connects compassionate volunteers with individuals in post-surgery recovery or living with chronic illness
INFORole
UX Researcher & Service Designer
Team
3 UX Researchers
1 UX/UI Designer
Myself
Responsibilities
I co-led my team and was responsible for conducting user research, performing a competitive analysis, journey mapping, and creating the service blueprint.
DEFINING PROJECT GOALSWhile there was some evolution as we honed in on our problem space, some of our project goals were to create a service that:
1
Met a real need in the community
We wanted to solve a problem that really existed and would make sure our problem and solution were validated by research.
2
Was accessible to the user demographic
Once we validated our problem space, we determined that a multi-touchpoint, hybrid physical-digital service would make the solution most accessible to the user demographic.
3
Provided safe and trustworthy services to a vulnerable user group
We needed to ensure that the service made users feel safe enough to trust and use the service and that all parties would be kept safe during service use.
4
Was super easy to use
While accessibility is always important, the higher potential for physical or cognitive limitations among some of our key user groups made accessibility especially important.
THE PROCESSUsing a design thinking approach
My team engaged in an iterative process to define a problem space, ideate solutions, and ultimately, design a multi-touchpoint service that we prototyped and tested in real space and on screen.
Our project was carried out in the following phases:
DEFINING THE PROBLEMEverybody needs a little extra help sometimes, but not everybody has access to it.
Through conducting various ideation activities in Mural, we identified our problem area and defined our problem statement, determining that we would design a solution to help people who are in need get help with everyday tasks (e.g., grocery shopping, yard work, etc.).
Our initial problem statement:
People who are in need and have limited support networks sometimes need assistance with everyday tasks.
Some areas we explored included: volunteer work, social needs, mental health, and community-building.
OPPORTUNITYHow might we help people who are in need, and have limited support, get assistance with everyday tasks?
SERVICE BRAINSTORMThrough our service brainstorm, we identified the service’s primary users and brainstormed solutions.
While we eventually realized these primary users were way too general (more on that later), initially they included: “people in need” and community volunteers.
We then brainstormed several ideas for services to solve the problem and selected the three ideas that we thought would be the most effective and viable solutions.
After defining the first version of our problem statement, we identified the users and stakeholders of our service, which evolved once we revised our problem statement and iterated on our service design.
We brainstormed potential solutions to our problem statement and voted on three solutions that we believed would be the most effective and viable solutions.
REDEFINING THE PROBLEM STATEMENTThrough additional ideation activities in Mural, we realized that our initial problem statement was too broad and that we needed to narrow the scope to a more specific group of users.
My 64-year-old father had recently undergone shoulder replacement surgery, and while he had been fortunate to have my mom take care of him for the weeks of recovery that followed, it got me wondering: how do people handle lengthy recoveries from surgeries or debilitating illnesses when they live alone? Especially those with limited finances and support networks?
My group agreed that focusing specifically on this group could be a good way to narrow our focus, which was supported by research that revealed:
1
28% of the population lives alone
34.75 million single-person households in the U.S.
2
27% of adults 60+ live alone
One of the most vulnerable populations
3
33% of adults over 45 are lonely
The majority feeling physically isolated and/or having small social networks
We narrowed our scope to increase effectiveness.
Based on these findings, we rewrote our problem statement:
BEFORE
People who are in need and have limited support networks need assistance with everyday tasks.
AFTER
People who are in post-surgery recovery or living with chronic illness and have limited support networks need assistance with everyday tasks.
IN-DEPTH RESEARCH & COMPETITIVE ANALYSISWe researched the unique needs and challenges of our newly defined user group. Our research and competitive analysis revealed that most outpatient care and hospice volunteer services don’t include help with daily household tasks, and these services can be difficult to afford.
Major insights and key findings
1
Limited providers
While our clients may already have nurses, physical therapists, or occupational therapists to assist in their recovery, their support is usually limited to direct patient care.
2
Limited services
Most outpatient care and hospice volunteer services do not extend to providing assistance with daily household tasks like laundry, cleaning, yard work, and grocery shopping.
3
High costs
These services are available, but they’re not always covered by Medicare and can be very expensive, especially if needed long-term.
Starting point of our competitive analysis.
USER INTERVIEWSUser research validated the general design but also exposed some major areas in need of attention.
After developing our preliminary concepts for GSOTG's operational design and potential touchpoints, we initiated user research to assess interest, identify pain points, test our concepts, and ultimately validate our design.
This involved conducting user interviews with representative individuals from our target user groups, along with insights from two subject matter experts (SMEs). Our interviews delved into users' backgrounds, needs, and pain points, allowing us to synthesize valuable findings.
1
A physical therapist validated the need for this type of service and the types of assistance patients would likely need, which included help with cleaning, laundry, yard maintenance, and grocery shopping.
2
A volunteer program manager provided valuable insights that exposed some major areas in need of attention and potential improvement in our design, especially around ensuring safety, clearly defining the roles and responsibilities of volunteers, training and accountability, and data collection for future funding.
SURVEYSurvey says: Respondents would use this type of volunteer service if we addressed some issues.
We collected data from 35 people by conducting a light-touch survey (Carolyn Jarrett, Surveys That Work) to better understand the type of tasks people would need assistance with most, the desired frequency of assistance, and the comfort level with the volunteers.
Note: Due to time constraints, we weren’t able to survey as many members of our target user group as desired (only 35% of our participants were above 35 years old). We also neglected to include a question about income, which would have provided valuable data since our target demographic included those with a lower income level.
MAJOR INSIGHTSWe noticed some important themes from our user research, which we addressed in our design as much as possible, including:
PERSONA CREATIONBased on what we learned from our user research, we evaluated our user types and created personas.
We heavily relied on these throughout the design process to ensure we were always addressing user needs first.
Our user interviews and surveys helped us realize that our user group might be too narrow and that there was another group of users to include: individuals with a chronic or terminal illness. We also saw a need to add a form of respite care to our service offerings to provide support to primary caregivers.
Carl Client User Persona
DESIGNING THE USER JOURNEYI relied on the data from our user research to create journey maps.
I created journey maps for Carl Client and Vicky Volunteer, two of our primary personas and refined these journey maps throughout the user testing we conducted.
Carl Client Journey Map
🎯 When creating Carl’s journey map, we determined that all client feedback on volunteers would only be visible internally. Initially, we wanted each volunteer to receive a rating after they completed their volunteer work, but after discussing this idea with users who expressed a desire to be volunteers for such a service, the idea was rejected. One user said that since volunteers would be giving up their time to do this work, it would be implied that they would be doing it to the best of their ability and that a public score could be a big discouragement to volunteering. We subsequently determined that clients could provide feedback to the organization so if there were any issues that needed to be addressed, the organization would close the feedback loop with sensitivity and discretion.
VALUE STREAM MAPPINGWe used value stream mapping to improve the design by adding specific sources for the volunteers as well as paid support staff.
We used value stream mapping to illustrate, analyze, and improve the steps required to deliver our service.
We recognized that creating a service that relied heavily on volunteers would have unique challenges and wanted to ensure we had an effective system for driving volunteer engagement. We identified and added high schools, colleges, and religious and community organizations as important stakeholders, as they would be a primary source of volunteers.
We also recognized that the service would need paid staff to ensure that both clients and volunteers had adequate training and/or support and incorporated them into the design.
PROTOTYPING AND USER TESTINGWe built, tested, and refined low- and high-fidelity prototypes and roleplayed to test, improve, and finalize the design.
We built low- and high-fidelity prototypes, which we tested on users. During the user testing, we had users interact with a low-fidelity prototype to identify any usability issues with the user interface. We also roleplayed as volunteers with users to identify any issues with the end-to-end process of our service. We then refined the user journey and high-fidelity prototypes based on the results of our user testing.
We prototyped and tested for both user types: 1) clients and 2) volunteers. Below are a few of the screens we prototyped. See the interactive high-fidelity prototype here.
Volunteer Perspective
Client Perspective
DESIGNING THE SERVICE BLUEPRINTPutting it all together…
As the culmination of my team’s research, prototyping, and user testing, I designed the service blueprint to depict the end-to-end process of the GSOTG service in its entirety. I included all levels of the service, from the customer actions, physical and digital touchpoints, back-of-stage interactions, and the needed support processes in all of its phases.
1
The blueprint reflects the ways our service evolved a lot from its initial conception, from a simple app into a full-fledged service organization.
2
Interviews with our SMEs helped us understand the logistical needs to address in the support functions and made us realize the need for paid staff to manage operations and provide support for volunteers and clients.
3
We also determined that we would need to employ volunteer managers to coordinate volunteer schedules and handle training, background checks, etc. and that having a call center would benefit technologically limited clients.
Service Blueprint: End-to-End Process
THE SOLUTIONWe created Good Samaritans On the Go, a service that connects compassionate volunteers with individuals in post-surgery recovery or living with chronic illness.
FUTURE CONSIDERATIONS1
Accessible website
A website will be more accessible than an app for clients who lack the tech savviness or motor skills due to age or physical limitations to use the app.
For future iterations of this service, we would recommend the following considerations:
2
Auditing
Have live staff audit requests coming in and incorporate an approval process.
3
Guard rails
Prevent clients from taking advantage of the service (e.g., require a doctor’s note, proof of income level, etc.).
4
Data reporting
Collect data that would help GSOTG apply for grants.