Acumen Academy collaborated with IDEO to create the Introduction to Human Centred Design course as part of an extra curricular research project. This course was broken out over several units with a timeline of 6 weeks.
In that time there were lessons about the basics of Human Centred Design, Covering the double Diamond Diagram workflows such as Discover. Define. Develop.
We then developed designs to test with those users, resulting in a service based, physical or application like product at the end of the course.
To commence our project, my colleague and I were tasked with picking one of the example problems being.
"How might we reduce stigma and increase employment possibilities for those living with disabilities?"
We chose
To start off we laid out our initial knowledge of initiatives for those with disabilities in Australia as well as some early points of inquiry such as
Knowledge
There are Disability centric employment agencies around to help those with a disability find work
The NDIS works with Employment agencies to help individuals find wor
Possible areas of research
Getting better insight into how those with a Disability view themselves and the greater societ
Learning how workplaces have adapted to cater for those with a disability both pre and during Covid-19
Once we defined one key assumptions, we collated some interview questions including more generalised quantitative questions about the participants and their situation to more specific questions about their lives depending on if they were a parent, individual or expert. Some of these included:
• What are your daily interactions with those who have mental or physical disabilities
• What role do you think the government plays in disability support and enforcing measures
• Do you think it has been effective? Why/Why Not
We conducted the user interviews with all 6 participants using a combination of in person recorded meetings, Otter.ai for audio transcription (of audio calls) and recorded zoom calls which made it easier to backtrack and take further notes on our findings.
Miro board sorted by trends identified within our user interviews
Once we collated this data, we identified that there was a need to establish early contact between students (prospective employees) and employees whilst they are at school. This could help change the narrative of employment for these students with disabilities and also provides valuable experience for them early on as they continue their studies.
Our solution was a work experience tracker which not only recorded the tasks done by the student during their time (important for a resume later on in terms of listing skills and proficiencies) but also made it easy for students, staff facilitating the work experience, and employers to all connect with each other should questions or issues arise during this time.
Once we drew out some wireframes on paper we collaborated together to see how an experience could look. We then moved to Miro given we were both working remotely.
Digital Wireframes of the tracker screens in order of interaction (Created in Miro)
Our next phase of the process was testing these prototypes with our users. We imported all our wireframes to InVision and used this as a place to test with some of our users in person by letting them click through, from the homepage to thank you screen as they complete those tasks
Generally, our users were very receptive to the designs, offering some feedback points such as:
Maybe a timer that goes down for your shift (once the shift has commenced showing how much time is left
Larger icons and fonts as well as the being easy to read for user who may have a screen reader or use a braille device
This project was overall considered to be a success both between my workmate and from our users.
When asked if this suited the use case we came up with, users mentioned it would help fill a gap in the disability employment space and could help cater to a wider berth of individuals and as an overarching school program and tool partnership.
We used the points suggested and implemented what we found was needed from a viability standpoint in the time given but also what helped quash any lingering concerns from our users.
Besides designing for general usability with a clear hierarchy, colour contrast and correct visual mapping were also made sure it was WCAG 2.0 compliant.
A high fidelity mockup of the main screen on Desktop and Mobile for CareerConnect
