RedRing
Mobile &
Desktop App
A desktop and mobile platform designed to identify localized community issues and facilitate meaningful engagement with individuals facing some of society's most challenging circumstances.
Can a community rally and engage those experiencing homelessness in the Greater Seattle Region with the help of an app?
My Role: UX Research | UX Design | Site Data Manger
Duration: 2 years | Sept 2013 - Dec 2015
Team: Chris Gough, Jeff Lilley, Todd Gibson and myself
Tools Used: Google Forms, iPhone, Ruby on Rails
OVERVIEW
THE CHALLENGE
Everyday people living in the Greater Seattle Region do not have the tools or understanding how to engage homelessness. This creates a chasm between them and those experiencing homelessness in the community.
THE SOLUTION
A desktop and mobile app that utilizes location-based mapping to provide a directory of resources for those living on the margins or in need of help.
THE IMPACT
Users feel like they can offer something more than money, providing real help at their fingertips and allowing an opportunity to engage with those in need.
How might we assist those living and working in the Greater Seattle Region with information at their fingertips, regarding resources for those experiencing homeless and in turn the person on the street, but also the user who can be empowered to help?
BACKGROUND & CONTEXT
BACKGROUND:
In September of 2013 RedRing a startup, founded by the president of a homeless shelter and marketing agency in Seattle, launched a mobile app for users to engage with homelessness and partner with organizations who assist in this field–religious, government and nonprofit entities. Their desire was to map out potential resources and educate users on how to engage with homelessness and other key issues.
MY ROLE:
I was brought on as the sole FTE as a UX researcher, designer and spokesperson for the app and also managed the data on the back end. I traveled all around the greater Seattle region to show the app for potential organizations and users and gathered qualitative and quantinative data of their usage. I also traveled across the nation at conferences, showcasing how it could be utilized. My goal was to spark interest, build collaboration to populate the map and mine data for resources, and document how the app is being used.
Me demonstrating at a Seattle Tech conference
Downtown Seattle
THE PROBLEM
What I didn’t know in the beginning:
-
UX design for the app was lacking. It didn't really solve a problem, but just presented information to users without giving them the avenue and resources needed to engage.
-
While it looked pretty, and super-cool (especially for 2013), without understanding user's needs, pain-points and proper design thinking, it was not viable for anyone to utilize.
I was soon going to discover why UX design is a vital discipline of design, which may have been the impetus of my journey toward the field.
DESIGN PROCESS
DESIGN PROCESS
RESEARCH
My first reaction to RedRing, when presented it was “this could be an absolute game changer for those wanting to help, but don’t know how. When they were showing me the platform in my interview process, I shared my initial feelings of how those who are on the margins need something like this. What I soon discovered that it was actually the USER who might be most affected.
Knathan demonstrating at the AGRM Conference
St. Louis, MO
KEY TAKEAWAYS – THE POWER OF STORY
It was a sunny day in September, my first days of working on the platform and trying to assess how to begin my research. The gentleman showing me the ropes with the app had been brought on as a consultant.
We were walking along 1st Ave in downtown Seattle, near the Pike Place Market as we walked towards two homeless individuals. My associate took out his phone, opened the RedRing app prototype and greeted the passersby. They asked for money, he declined but asked them if they were looking for resources, food or shelter. They said a reluctant and skeptical, “yeah”. He proceeded to open the app and filtered out homeless shelters/providers in the immediate area. They were intrigued by the app- but replied, “yeah, we know all those places”. This led to a 20 minute conversation on the street as they opened up their story and shared with us struggles of being on the street and the difficulties of dealing with some of these organizations.
This interaction blew my mind–those two individuals just wanted someone to hear them out, to acknowledge them and to see them as human beings, even in their broken state. I was moved beyond expression. This encounter would be my shining story to tell on-boarders for the next couple of years. However, something felt like it was missing.
The next calendar year I spent time researching and testing the app with intendued users: pastors of local churches, homeless shelters workers, neighborhood watch groups, city councils and tech companies in downtown Seattle. My goal was to find solutions together and to see if the prototype could be useful for our goals: helping bridge the community at large with those experiencing homelessness. The UI aspect of RedRing was super-captivating and led to a lot of ideas of how to engage with homelessness, but the app couldn't really gain traction with use.
One of the first moments in which I realized this app would not get off the ground was in a meeting with a pastor from the city of Federal Way, WA. He is a massive individual, standing at 6’4” and an even bigger presence in conversation with a booming voice. Surprisingly, his heart is bigger than his stature. I presented to him the app and showed him on the map several options of care for homeless individuals in his city of Federal Way (about 20 miles south of Seattle). As I used the app to show organizations nearby, he had a tear rolling down his eye. I asked somewhat surprised if he was okay. He explained on the way to our meeting he met two homeless individuals in a parking lot and didn’t know how to engage with them. He then confessed that his church doesn’t know how to either. He ALSO confessed that he didn’t even know most of the organizations I had shown that can assist with this societal problem. He asked if I would demonstrate the app to a team of leaders in the community–faith leaders, business leaders, health providers and community organizers. I felt this was a great plan and a great way to get the ball rolling for people to utilize the app. Presentations always received such a great response, it was powerful for people to see potential solutions on a map–a lot of imagination was sparked and I was asked to attend monthly meetings to speak into the matters of how to engage. However, people didn’t use the app. And this became the theme over the course of the next two years: I would present it to interested parties, to utilize, but no one would jump on board with implementing or utilizing the app. This was frustrating, but at the same time I realized that I did not use it either outside the context of showing it to others. Why is this the case? What I soon discovered was two different threads of issues for the app: On the technical side–our team had to manually enter the information for the organizations, churches and non-profits available. This led to a LOT of data entry that had to be maintained and scrubbed. Many of the organizations were small and at that time barely had a website maintained to provide information that would be useful. This model was not sustainable or scalable. People who were interested in perhaps using it were not interested in uploading data for the site. Users did not find this as a helpful tool to engage with homelessness. While it was very appealing to the eye and informative for some whose hearts are naturally aligned with helping those in need, the average user does not want to have an interaction with a homeless individual. The app didn't provide any way for them to learn how to engage or even solve the problem of learning how to engage. It just provided information. This led me to discover the app, did not work to help users engage with those experiencing homelessness.
FINAL RESULTS & LESSONS LEARNED
After two years, I had to take a big breath and realize with the current design of the app- it was not feasible to continue in support. It did not solve problems the users have to engage those experiencing homelessness. I wrote up an analysis and assessment and delivered it to the stakeholders. This was a remarkable thing to do- considering I was basically working myself out of a job. While that was a risk to consider, I could no longer find a use for the app in a feasible way.
Lessons learned and Follow up:
Lessons learned were valuable for me personally: I discovered why User Experience Design is so crucial and why it matters. The stakeholders never considered: who their user was, what were their needs, why would they need this? Instead, (with good intentions) made an app they would like to utilize to either tell the story of homelessness or how they could benefit themselves.
It was difficult for me to wrap my head around at the time- I saw this platform could be such a powerful device for telling the story of not only those who ARE homeless, but the story of how many people desire to help those on the margins and in the streets. This app, though its ideals may have been lofty, had good intentions, but was telling the wrong story. It was telling others to tell homeless people how to get help. The app along with the organization discontinued after two years.
