1Place!
Designing an app that acts as a repository for transition age youth
What is 1Place!?
1Place! is an app designed for transition age youth who have been in foster care, or are currently in foster care to house all of their important information that will assist them during the process of becoming more independent.
What’s the problem?
Currently, there is no streamlined, accessible, and organized way to provide documentation and information to youth in foster care (primarily nearing 18 years of age), or who are coming out of foster care (voluntarily or because they were aging out). All important documents provided to youth, such as their education plans, out-of-home placement plans, independent living plans, and many more are provided as paper documents, or they may receive a digital copy that is kept in an unorganized online or phone space.
Furthermore, as youth turn 18, they are responsible - in most situations - for keeping track of vital information such as their ID, birth certificate, and social security card. Youth have a difficult time keeping track of their information, and I wanted to find a way to make this process less challenging.
The Challenge
Designing an app for transition age youth to house important documentation and information
My Role
Served as UX Researcher and UX Designer
Secondary Research
Comparator Analysis
User Interviews w/ subject matter experts
Focus Group w/ transition age youth
IA Diagram
User Journey Map
Usability Testing
Low Fidelity Sketches
High Fidelity Wireframes
Method
What I did…
To start this project, I compiled a list of documentation that youth who have been in foster care would typically see at some point along their journey. Truthfully, the list was extensive. I then conducted secondary research to make sure I didn’t miss information the state also required case managers to assist the youth in obtaining. I think the information below is an important visual to see just how much information is passed onto youth as they are nearing 18 or coming out of foster care.
Where are youth supposed to keep all of this information, access it when needed, and not lose it?
Method Cont’d
Who I talked with…
At this point, this was a single problem I had encountered as a case manager, and I wanted to get feedback from other subject matter experts working directly with transition age youth. I interviewed two providers through the YMCA who worked with youth in a transition program. Furthermore, I also wanted to gather youth’s experiences, especially with how they were managing to keep track of information, so I conducted a focus group with three transition age youth from the YMCA.
Demographics of youth:
3 females ages 18-25
2 formerly in foster care; 1 currently in extended foster care
3 youth had some college credit, but no degree
Initial Research Findings
After interviewing providers at the YMCA, several issues were identified:
youth are missing their birth certificate and SS card, some have medical insurance cards, but not all
a common place documents and information are stored are in google docs or notes app, unorganized
documents are scattered across homes (foster home, biological family)
With regard to desirability and being helpful, secondary users rated the app a 6.5 (scale of 1-7 (1 = not desirable; 7 = most desirable) for desirability, and a 6 (1 = not helpful; 7 = helpful) for being helpful.
I was able to take feedback from the two provider interviews and generate five sketched feature ideas for the app, and presented them to the youth during the focus group session. I asked youth to rate each feature’s desirability and whether it would or would not be helpful as a feature, and why.
The sketched features included:
screen with a picture of an ID with the ability to set a reminder for when to renew
resources section, such as housing, food, medical, etc.
the ability to email documents from the app
screen with a picture of an insurance card and a link that will direct youth where to apply to renew their insurance and where they can request a new card
the option to leave a voice note or other note on where you kept your physical copy of an item at (e.g., social security card)
Out of the five features, features 1-4 were rated similarly desirable and helpful. Participants rated Feature 4 as the most desirable and most helpful of all the features.
Design Experience
Thinking about the current experience for youth, I took an experience that one of the youth shared and incorporated this into a journey map. The experience involved needing the participant’s adoption court paperwork in order to apply for a grant for college, and the youth didn’t have the documents. This is shown below in the map as a pain point throughout the process of trying to apply for the grant.
User Story
As a transition age youth, I want to have all the documentation I need to go to college and receive grant funding so that I’m not in debt when I graduate.
The Flow
When thinking about the flow of the app and the different pages it would encompass, I mapped this out in an IA diagram and amended it several times based on the findings from my research.
The Design
For the design of the app, I utilized the research I had conducted, in addition to a first round of usability testing, and applied this to the design. As guiding principles, the app design needed to be simple, straightforward with few clicks as possible, and easy to understand.
Conclusion & Next Steps
Conclusion…
Research findings indicated that youth have an unstructured way of organizing their information, often times losing vital documents or not having documents that impact their independent living goals. 1Place! is an app designed to address these issues acting as a repository to simplify, organize, and make accessible important documentation and information for transition age youth in foster care or formerly in foster care as they become more independent.
Next Steps…
Building out the resources folder in the app
transition age youth want to know what resources are available to them
Incorporating a “how to” section and determining what kind of “how to” would be helpful
Adding push notifications for reminders