CommUNITY

Andrea Frank | Dana Frey | Justin Hallman | Napier Kentish | Sophia Ramsey

​

December 2020

​

12.15.2020

MUXD 5203.01

Table of Contents

​

1. Problem Statement
2. Understanding the Problem
3. Competitive Analysis Excerpt
4. Summary of Interview Results
5. Personas
6. Guiding Concepts
7. Prototype Pathways
8. Future Steps

​

Problem Statement

In times of community crisis, larger organizations are tasked with tackling large scale crises, while local communities are left to manage non-life threatening situations. Neighbors within a community need a way to mobilize assets, organize teams, and distribute donations to other neighbors in need. How might we enable neighbors to form a network of mutual support?

Understanding the Problem

Desk research and interviews were conducted with users active in their community and who have participated in or assisted with emergency relief to determine how we might enable neighbors to form a network of mutual support.

​

Interview findings revealed that larger organizations (i.e., Red Cross, FEMA, etc.) arrive at the scene very quickly due to their large volunteer base.

​

These organizations can provide wide-scale support and assistance, however there still lies a need within the community for assistance with smaller scale efforts.

Takeaways that helped inform our design include:

​

• Encouraging citizens to understand how to prepare for and react to disasters to mitigate damage after a disaster occurs.

​

• Determine how to quickly identify when a neighbor is in need and offer them support.

​

• Identify ways to contact and communicate with neighbors.

​

• Identify ways to safely donate (individually) time, services, goods to neighbors in needs

​

​

​

​

Competitive Analysis Excerpt

Summary of Interview Results (1 of 2)

• It is important to build an audience before a disaster so that users are familiar with CommUNITY’s functionality and do not have to learn it while enduring a stressful disaster

​

• Most people have major gaps in knowledge of how to prepare for and respond to a crisis. This often creates dire situations for themselves, or impedes response time of first responders.

• If holding in-person events, it’s important to find creative ways to draw in community members to increase app awareness and downloads, i.e. with food vendors.
• Important to retain users to facilitate convenient peer-to-peer sharing of resources.
• Communication is critical. Who has evacuated? Who needs what and where?
• Easy implementation is key because users may be in a time of crisis or disaster.

Individual Preparedness

Community

Awareness of App

Summary of Interview Results (2 of 2)

​

• There are no “cookie cutter” situations; priorities can and do change based on disaster or non-disaster, type of need, location, neighborhood, etc.

​

• Important to focus on non-life threatening situations so that those in dire �need can be cared for by trained specialists.

​

• Critical to consider technical issues where folks may not get notifications, see the app, or have internet connections. How might we find creative ways to reach them?

• Key to donations is ensuring that they are easily facilitated, and if online, �easy to use on multiple devices.

​

• Recurring monthly donations are important to grassroots organizing.

​

• Important to consider how need for donations is communicated while balancing safety considerations (such as advertising that you have many resources to share while not stating your specific location.)

Increase in Person to Person Interactions

Increase in

Donated Resources

Personas

Through our research and synthesis, we pivoted our focus onto the Neighbor persona. With goals constantly changing for an individual household, we identified 3 role-based personas that are common for a neighbor in a community.

01 | Volunteer - Shares resources and provides services

02 | Donor - Donates resources

03 | Recipient - Receives resources

Guiding Concepts for a MVP Experience

​

With our users in mind, we ideated and prioritized concepts that would help bring the required functionality to reality in the MVP release of CommUNITY.

We also incorporated an additional feature to help bring differentiation to similar competitors.

Social Media Integration

​

Enable neighbors to share posts with social media channels

​

Interactive Map

​

Enable geotagging of posts offering services, requesting help and making a donation

​

Volunteer Management

​

Enable neighbors to identify requests for services and create posts for offering services

​

Donation Management

​

Enable neighbors to identify requests for donations and create posts for donating goods

​

Digital Storage

​

Enable neighbors to store digital copies of legal documents in case they are lost during a disaster

​

Prototype Pathways

We organized the wireframes into a high-fidelity prototype. The prototype encompasses the user flows for all 3 role-based personas: volunteer, donor, and recipient.

01 | Volunteer - Reach out to a neighbor in need

02 | Donor - Create a donation post

03 | Donor - Share your donation post to Twitter

04 | Recipient - Find a nearby donation for flashlights

05 | Recipient - View your digital driver’s license

Prototype Pathway 1

​

Volunteer

User Task: Reach out to a neighbor in need

​

Link to Prototype

Prototype Pathway 2

​

Recipient (a)

User Task: Find a nearby donation for flashlights

​

​

Link to Prototype

Prototype Pathway 3

​

Recipient (b)

​

User Task: View your digital driver’s license

​

​

​

Link to Prototype

Prototype Pathway 4

​

Donor (a)

​

User Task: Create a donation post

​

Link to Prototype

Prototype Pathway 5

​

Donor (b)

​

User Task: Share your donation post to Twitter

​

Link to Prototype

Future Steps

1. Testing
1. Refine current user testing questions
2. Conduct comprehensive user testing
2. Roll out additional features on top of the MVP features
• Bluetooth communication option
• Resource and supply calculator
• Insurance discounts
• Community resource library

​

Thank You.

12.15.2020

MUXD 5203.01