TDA Connect
UX Research Case Study
Overview
TDA Connect, Phase II
Safe Place International
UX researcher (6 researchers total)
Product, Research, Design, Content, Dev
April - June 2023
Figjam, Notion, Vowel, Optimal Workshop
User interviews, usability testing, card sorting
Project
Client
My Role
Project team
Duration
Software
UXR methods
Background
Safe Place International (SPI) is an organization committed to providing material, emotional, and advocacy support for doubly-marginalized LGBTQIA+ refugees and single mothers in over 15 countries. For those in countries like Uganda, where one of the most repressive anti-homosexuality bills has recently been passed into law, SPI’s mission to “protect, connect, and lead” is an especially critical operation. Their hallmark 10-week leadership program is called The Dream Academy (TDA) and it has, to date, empowered hundreds of its graduates to forge a life and community that they want and deserve, even in the face of adversity.
Project description
TDA Connect is a web-based platform conceived by SPI as a virtual safe space for the program’s alumni to maintain and expand their TDA social network and easily access resources bespoke to their needs. It is to be inclusive of the user group’s lived experiences, extremely secure, and accommodating of users’ internet connectivity challenges - going beyond what typical social media apps provide today.
Goals
I joined the UX research team for Phase II of the project, after the MVP for Authentication, Onboarding, Profile Settings, and Social Feed had initially been designed in Phase I. Over four 2-week long sprints, the UXR team primarily focused on gathering insights to support the Designing of a Resource Center.
At the end of Phase II, the project team successfully delivered a high-fidelity mobile prototype that included this feature. The UXR team itself provided a document to the client containing the most salient research findings. We also prepared a set of hand-off documents for the next researchers to reference for Phase III, as the project was to continue being developed.
When I say TDA,
they are family to me.
The problem: Resource center
How might we provide resources that are valuable and accessible to users?
Competitor analysis Assumption mapping User interviews
Because of the dire political situation users were facing in Uganda, it was decided with the client that the Resource Center was going to be the first priority for Phase II. Because the idea was still vague and undefined, the UXR team set out to conduct user interviews to generate clearer recommendations for this feature.
But first, we did some groundwork to be as informed and primed for the interviews as possible. In collaboration with the designers, we conducted a competitor analysis, looking at what similar organizations were already doing successfully and/or poorly. We analyzed 7 websites of LGBTQIA+ support groups (eg: OK2bme) and Human Rights organizations (eg: International Refugee Assistance Project). Then with our SWOT analysis, we mapped out assumptions and distilled them down to the following:
-
Resource Center should be driven by TDA users (including a job board)
-
Users know what they are looking for (use of search/filter vs. browsing)
-
Users will not trust external links
-
Continual learning is a high priority for users
These preliminary explorations helped our team create the interview script and begin to empathize with our users. The team lead recruited participants from a list from the client, and the interviews were conducted via video calls over 6 days.
No. of
interviews
I conducted 1
8
Participants:
who are current
SPI directors
TDA alumni
Session duration:
min.
40-50
Key interview questions:
-
Tell me about a time you received support or help online - how did you find that help?
-
What kind of resources do you find yourself looking for most after graduating from TDA?
-
How do you currently look for job opportunities?
-
What is the ideal outcome for TDA Connect users from utilizing the resource center?
-
Think of an online source you consider trustworthy - can you tell us about why you can trust that source?
Interview data affinity mapping
Coding all of the transcripts by Satisfaction, Pain Points, Goals, Needs, Tools, and Attitudes/Emotions resulted in a mountain of information to synthesize. To efficiently yet systematically comb through the data, the team worked in small groups to affinity map 2 participants, then 4, then 8. This was our approach to carefully consider all pieces of information as well as understand the data as an aggregate. The affinity groups and resulting insights were then ranked by top, middle, and lower tiers of significance.
It was interesting to note that most of the participants had no specific expectations for a resource center and listing off useful resources were difficult for them. Nonetheless, our open-ended prompts and follow-up questions lead to some important recommendations, a few highlighted here:
Talking about something that happened years back... something will be triggered. You do need someone to help you.
Participants prefer pursuring word-of-mouth referrals for job opportunities.
Recommendations:
-
Allow users to upload and share job openings.
-
Tag job postings with the source (community vs. friends) to establish trust
Insight 1
Graduates are enthusiastic about contributing to the TDA community.
Recommendations:
-
Allow users to upload and share resources.
-
Provide ability to comment on or rate the quality of a resource.
-
Give option to share resources on profile page, social feed, and with individual friends.
Insight 2
There is great need for emotional support, in addition to material support.
Recommendations:
-
Highlight a banner for crisis care, including emotional support.
-
Provide emotional support as it’s own category in resources.
Insight 3
Questions, insights, and recommendations were handed off to the Design team, as well as shared project-wide. Examples of app features born directly out of research are highlighted above.
Moderated card sort
After the design team gathered as much feedback from UXR and the client on what to include in the Resource Center, they needed to verify that the IA for the library reflected the mental models of the user group. The research team assisted in this effort by conducting 7 moderated card sorts over video calls, using Optimal Workshop. The card sort was set up to be hybrid - participants had pre-determined categories to choose from, as well as the option to create a new category if desired.
Overall, we observed that participants were in agreement of which category to associate with the cards, particularly if the same term (eg: “legal”) appeared in both places.
The “Sexual health,” “HIV Info,” and “Gender Identity” cards caused the most hesitation among the testers, and as a result they were split between “Physical health” and “Emotional/Mental Health” because both seemed relevant. The solution UXR recommended was to continue the pattern of paired categories, by adding “Sexual Health” to the “Physical Health.”
Results & Wrap-up
Hi-fidelity mockups
Next steps
Phase III will continue the evolution of TDA Connect with a new set of team members. For the new UX researchers, the following suggested next steps were prepared for them as they build upon the existing body of work.
Usability test the resource center
Test users that aren’t as involved with TDA (ie not leader/ try not to use the same people that we did this phase)
Competitive analysis possibilities:
Profile management features
Direct messaging features
Dig deeper into:
How does SPI mitigate internet access challenges (cost and power outages) for staff and/or students? Is there a way that TDA Connect can help?
Pros/cons of providing a way to post anonymously
If this should even be a feature at all
Ensuring safety: how the platform can empower the community to effectively self-govern, or at least minimize the burden of Groups creators (probably will involve dev and client in conversations)
Learnings
This being my first project with a client and cross-functional team, I learned a lot from this experience. In terms of research, I realized there was quite a large amount of effort and hours required to coordinate multiple people for user interviews and usability testing. We ran into a handful of issues such as absent participants, their internet unreliability, and low-bandwidth challenges that demanded that us researchers stay flexible with our time and tools. I now know best practices for being prepared for inevitable hurdles, including doing test runs beforehand, having back-up software (for video calls), and being ready to share our own screen to walk a participant through a testing session if they are not able to themselves.
Another big take-away was about methods of collaboration. A team of 6 researchers working on the same problem is probably a resource that only a minority of companies are lucky to have. However, working with such a large team also requires constant communication and preparation to keep everyone moving together. Because our interviews were split up among the members, it was imperative that we asynchronously reviewed each other’s recordings, transcripts, or notes before synchronously analyzing data.
