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DESIGN STRATEGY | CO- DESIGN | SYSTEMS THINKING
NewHorizons
Empowering systems impacted women to build interpersonal skills using emerging technology.
Role: User Researcher, Experience Designer
Timeline: 14 weeks | Jan 2023 - May 2023
Client: Rebel Health
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CONTEXT
Rebel Health wants to leverage technology to innovate solutions that provide services to systems-impacted women.
A Chicago-based venture that aims to revolutionize access to healthcare, psychiatric services, mental wellness, and healing for justice-impacted women.
Launched in the Spring of 2023, the venture will leverage technology, artificial intelligence, and innovative solutions to identify, treat and research trauma in systems-impacted women.
BRIEF
Help systems-impacted women build trust, confidence and skills in using technology to access services that help them regain their independence.
SOLUTION
NewHorizons
An artificially intelligent avatar-based learning platform that helps systems-impacted women learn, practice and apply interpersonal skills to lead a confident life post-release.
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Personalized learning coach.
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Develop a large range of skills.
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Guided experience to learn, seek feedback and practice.
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Community learning and accountability.
Feels Safe
Personalized learning coach
SIW have the agency to build their own avatar coaches, making them feel comfortable interacting with someone they can relate with, which ultimately leads to engaging them in building and learning soft skills.
Personalized coaches from digital to animated on criteria ranging attire, age, gender, race and accent
Builds Confidence
Develop a large range of skills
SIW can choose from a wide range of interpersonal skills to pick up from like small talks, active listening, reading body language, introductions, talking about their past among many others.
Range of soft skills
Easy to learn
Guided experience to learn, practice and seek feedback
Using human AI coaches, users can practice their newly learned skills by creating their own structures to their answers and getting real-time feedback from the AI coaches on what worked well and what did not.
Detailed feedback on each course
Brings Joy
Community Learning & Accountability
Inspired by the sense of community that already exists in prisons, NewHorizons allows SIW to practice with their friends to help them grow and build confidence.
Learning with community members online and offline
Interacting with a digital human coach
APPROACH
We tried following Equity centred community design approach by creative reaction lab.
Systems Analysis
RESEARCH
Lack of Economic Security and Support is a major barrier to reentry for formerly incarcerated women.
Our research led us to the identification of 4 barriers to reentry.
Of these, we focused on barriers to Economic Security and Support because:
1. Common reasons for re-arrests are related to difficulties in meeting financial obligations and lower employment skills.
2. A reason for low employment rates especially in formerly incarcerated women can be due to fewer programming opportunities for women in prison.
3. A vicious cycle of oppression prevents systems-impacted women to reenter society and lead better lives, but they remain motivated to break the cycle and make something of themselves.
System of oppression
Barriers within programming opportunities for women
SKill building programs do not provide practice and application opportunities.
“You can learn it(skills), you can’t apply it. Need to constantly practice what skills you learn in applied”
- Formerly incarcerated woman
Skill building in prison focuses on developing hard skills and not soft skills.
Management
English
Managing finances
Attorney
Drama & Theatrics
Fashion Design
Accessing to resources for skill development after release is difficult due to in-person teaching and commuting costs.
“Skill-building programs exist but you have to be in-person to access them. Technology is better to use, it is accessible whenever; When I came back home , I shied away a bit from technology but I learnt how to use smartphones and other apps to stay up with the times. ”
- Formerly incarcerated woman
How might we help systems-impacted women to learn skills that can help them secure jobs and build connections using technology?
WALL OF IDEAS
RAPID PROTOTYPING
Digital Avatars for helping systems impacted women develop soft skills such as preparation for job interviews and ways to network.
Flipbook for testing digital avatars concept
INSIGHTS FROM WORKSHOP
Co-creation workshop involving testing the prototype and validating the idea
PERSONA
The Wonder Woman
Pushing against all odds to thrive
Motivations
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Strong will-power to make their life better and not get back into the prison system
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Gaining economic freedom
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Support and love from friends in the prison
Needs
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To find employment
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To feel confident to reintegrate into society
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Maintain healthy emotional relationships professionally and personally
Barriers
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Inaccessible resources for learning and practice skills.
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Limited exposure to positive role models to build positive relationships
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Few soft-skills-based learning opportunities.
DESIGN PRINCIPLES
A solution that builds wonder woman's confidence with an easy-to-learn platform that feels safe and brings joy.
USER JOURNEY MAP
HIGH-FIDELITY PROTOTYPE
An artificially intelligent avatar-based learning platform that helps systems-impacted women learn, practice and apply interpersonal skills to lead a confident life post-release.
Customizations to modify learning coaches.
Large repertoire of skills to learn from.
Guided experience to learn, seek feedback and practice.
Community learning and accountability.
IMPACT
“ We don’t realize what impact technology can have on solving such systemic problems… this is a really cool idea that can not only help systems-impacted women get trained in job interviews but also help them practice personal and vulnerable conversations.
- CEO, Rebel Health
“Your product is not only helping build trust with technology but also with people… the community feature is especially nice since it bridges that gap from virtual to real. Great job building the whole idea out. "
- Professor, Interaction Design
REFLECTIONS
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Designing an application for a user base unfamiliar with mobile apps, laptops, and newer software presented a unique challenge. We aimed to create a simple interface with minimal interactions. However, I am uncertain if we succeeded and plan to conduct user testing to evaluate the ease of use and effectiveness of the system.
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I am proud that AI and Speech Analysis technology can be utilized to assist people who find themselves in vulnerable situations, instead of solely for customer engagement and business purposes.
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I learned how to conduct trauma-informed research within a vulnerable community. During a conversation, I was able to respectfully engage with community members and create a safe and secure environment for them to share their story and provide feedback.