An experience report that orbits designing and developing a mobile app in India and conducting research in Africa, working alongside Amnesty International, an inspiring organization exploring digital tools to support their constituents.
31. The core of strategy work is always
the same; discovering the critical
factors in a situation and designing a
way of coordinating and focusing
actions to deal with those factors.
- Richard P. Rumelt
#empathicux
Start with an apology can I get a number of hands…
I’m David Peter Simon, Experience Design Consultant at ThoughtWorks Ethnographer by training, systems thinker at heart
Today I ’ ll be covering 3 things: 1. Human rights technology story 2. Successful techniques used in the field for empathy 3. Some takeaways for crafting sustainable mobile strategies Hope to go quick for a conversation at the end
So if you were to leave, what ’ s the point? Rigorous methods to empathise with users needs to be actively undertaken when designing mobile products
Empathy is understanding another person ’ s condition – from their perspective…
It’s placing yourself in their shoes and feel what they are feeling…
Empathising with people is a tricky thing place yourself in the context of their mental model *and* physical space Understand constraints
I want to tell you a story It ’ s a story all about collaboration and iteration. Last year I ’ ve been very privileged to work with…
The Challenge W ays to use technology to support those held in or at risk of unlawful detention Amy ’ s idea, Refined at OpenIDEO…
To give you a background on what happens in this scenario, there ’ s about 3 levels of “ bad ” guys: - standard police force (not particularly technical), tech policde dude (gets logs and contacts, knows a bit) and the most aggressive one (which we can ’ t do anything about) - intelligence community…
Find a way to build an app to counter th Take ideas and make them real How could we get something out to the field?
The problem Too many scenarios Too many hurdles
The Approach brought the ideas from OpenIDEO forward, fine-tuned those ideas Our role: support and deliver what's “MVP”?
The Result we de-scoped so much a tool that allows you to encrypt a message, the individuals in your network and enables you to send a panic message out to those individuals in your network to alert them something is happening
True challenge wasn ’ t getting a prototype to work True challenge: how do you empathise? Difficulty of going along on kidnap spree Recognising power dynamics
Amnesty headed off to Nairobi Lucky to go along
Started by talking to people. Ethnographic approach Each task is broken down into smaller steps until each motion someone performs is described.
Key was to identify where strain occurs, not through the software but in the human system It ’ s important to identify and learn about people We got an opportunity to listen and learn rather than provide them with a solution
We think we can solve all peoples ’ problems
But people already have their own answers and ways about things And they don ’ t want our solution Difference: The correct answer to a puzzle vs. A thing done to deal with or as a reaction to a situation
Story about the well and the charity
Don ’ t design for solutions that aren ’ t needed Don ’ t diagnose false problems Design to augment answers.
Reaffirms for me needs of actual user unpredictable nature of how people
Speaking of unpredictable nature… We did CX mapping Some people don ’ t consider time linearly Some people don ’ t have people: I have no one Most interesting thing we learned wasn ’ t usage, but how people view things
No recipe for a homerun app But what there is is a strategy to learn about people and figure out how to build things that augments current answers
It ’ s never about _just_ building an an app or product, it ’ s about supporting people in their goals - whether that ’ s evading the secret police or buying cheaper home insurance.
And these sort of “empathic” methods can be applied to any project lifecycle Just to recap, the three key (yet basic) ones we found successful in the field were...
the process of asking a user to execute a series of tasks or use technology, while continuously verbalizing their thoughts so that a researcher can gain insights as to the users' analytical process WhatsApp example
analysis of how a task is accomplished w/ detailed description of both manual and mental activities Task time Guy who owned a smart phone but couldn’ t use it, pulled out his dumb phone Tech literacy rate,
imagine what it would be like if the product existed, and act as though it exists, ideally in the place it would be used Learn a richer story simply by putting yourself in their shoes. One group actually recreated a police brutality scenario. Activity of getting on the ground and pretending to be hit reified the necessity of certain features
Success isn ’ t just a working app It ’ s working with people, using rigorous techniques, to find how your ideas augment their answers It’s empathising with them to get to the next stage and to inform your desgin.
So what are the three takeaways for crafting mobile strategies based on empathy?
Focus on what ’ s not said. Like the story of the charity & the well Don ’ t just design for moments or spaces but for people
Apply the 80/20 rule. Y ou start with people and work backwards towards the technology. Whatsapp example, how they use tech already Build off that
Continually refine it and iterate it Be empathy-informed Two phones guy, allow for human emotion to influence you
Empathy is a skill that you can learn. It's like riding a bicycle. If you're willing to work at it, you can rapidly improve the quality of your designs and allow you to build next step. Open question I ask myself now is how will I *actively* apply empathy on this project And I end with leaving that open question do you guys: how do you *actively* apply empathy on your projects