Safe Place International UX Research

Safe Place International UX Research Sprint

Talking to the marginalized LGBTQIA+ African community

Safe Place International is a leadership development organization for marginalized and LGBTQIA+ communities in Africa. The Dream Academy (TDA) is their 10-week leadership development, socio-emotional learning, and employment skills course.

Our product team was working on developing TDA Connect, a social media and resource platform for TDA graduates.

My team in particular focused on user research to guide the larger team’s decisions.

Role: UX Researcher

Timeframe: May 2023 – June 2023

Project: Safe Place International Phase 2 was an 8 week sprint performed by many teams from Tech Fleet in an agile environment.

Deliverables include: SWOT analysis • Competitive heuristic evaluations • User interviews and recommendations • Usability tests and recommendations • Card sort test results

Teams included:

• Product management

• 2 UX design teams

• UX content

• Project lead

• Front-end development

• Back-end development

• UX research

Amina is a lesbian single parent living in South Africa. She migrated for better rights and safety, but she is still treated differently as an immigrant and a lesbian. It has been hard to find a job as an immigrant and she is looking for good jobs open to hiring immigrants like her.

How might we best meet the physical and social needs of the LGTBQI+ community in Africa?

1. When it comes to resources, such as housing, jobs, or food, people tend to be cautious about whether a source is trustworthy. But they put a lot of trust in endorsements and opinions of their social circles.

2. As an LGBTQI+ resident in Africa, it can be easy to fall into depression. TDA grads seemed to value emotional resources, such as a therapist or simply someone to listen, over physical needs.

Heuristics Evaluation and SWOT with Product Strategy Team

Competitors analyzed: 6
Established usability standards
Top opportunities from SWOT prioritized with dot voting

Opportunities

Option to create private and public groups.
Group recommendations based on user interests, mutual friends, etc.
Ability to invite and share groups.
Community-moderated groups.

Competitive analysis and SWOT with UX Design Team 2

Competitors analyzed: 7
Identified unique value propositions, advantages, and disadvantages
Top opportunities from SWOT prioritized with dot voting

Opportunities

Resource Center should be community driven.
Resources should be organized and easy to filter based on need and location.
Highlight sensitive information.
Established trust in external resources.

Goals

Define expectations of what participants expect from a resource center
Understand the types of resources that users value.
Bridge the gap between the current and ideal way to obtain resources.

Findings

7 out of 8 participants mentioned the critical importance of emotional support.

Recommendations:

Safe space to talk to someone in the resources center
Create profile picture banners to allow users to make themselves available.

Design Impact:

To cultivate comm. and foster an inclusive and emotionally supportive environment, the UX Design team created the option to add a banner to avatar images indicating grad year, TDA roles, and availability to help.

They do need any emotional support, which I know in, in the community is needed because there’s a lot of trauma that happens. You know, there is a lot of stigma that passes through.

6 out of 8 participants used referrals to ensure legitimacy of resources and professional connections to protect themselves against threats including scams and human trafficking.

Recommendations:

Share and comment on resources for increased trust.

Design Impact:

Users were given the opportunity to give a thumbs up or thumbs down according to their impressions and experiences with resources, informing other users.
There are tags indicating if a resource is endorsed by Safe Place International or the broader community.

Before I used to go, like, if it’s like a certain page. I would actually go and see, you know, how many of my friends would be on that page.

4 out of 8 participants shared enthusiasm about their passion projects and would find value in features that helped them work on the projects further and together as a community.

Recommendations:

Brainstorm space for passion projects. Should this be incorporated into groups, profiles, or a separate feature entirely?

Design Impact:

Passion project tag included prominently on group creation.
Included on users’ profiles if desired. Final outcome still being explored.

Amina looked in TDA Connect for job opportunities open to hiring immigrants, and she found some that were marked as trustworthy by her peers via a thumbs-up system. She was also able to find someone to connect with and talk about how difficult it has been for her recently. She was encouraged and strengthened by their conversation.

Interview (15-25 min.)
Testing the prototype (20-35 min.)
Moderated card sort (10-15 min.)

Prototype Test Goals

The initial goal was to clarify how easily users understood the sign-up/onboarding process
Observe their understanding of the sensitive topics toggle on posts
Comment and add a friends feature.
ID any friction/ pain points within the flows.

Usability Test Results Example

During on-boarding, 66% did not read the guided tutorial carefully.
They revealed they normally skip tutorials.
When the Quick Exit feature was introduced at the end of on-boarding, participants were fatigued.
50% of participants skipped trying this important feature.

Design Impact:

Eliminated language to indicate we can save drafts upon exiting (to shorten on-boarding)
Moved Quick Exit test outside of the on-boarding process.
Put the Quick Exit test on their home feed to let them try it out at their own leisure.

Amina’s life isn’t perfect, but TDA has given her the ability to take power of her own life and help others in her situation. Within a community built on trust, camaraderie, and support easily accessed through TDA Connect, she is thriving even amongst adversity.

It was great to hear about unique problems we didn’t think about such as low bandwidth concerns, the pressures of legal restrictions and discrimination, and limited access to electricity. It also took us by surprise how important emotional support was to TDA grads.

It illustrates to me the value of hearing straight from users instead of relying on assumptions.

Continue evaluative research strategies (usability testing) to ID continued areas of improvement and to validate if changes to product design enhance user experience and address pain points.
Generative research will be conducted regarding DM and profile management features.
Explore how the platform can empower the community to effectively self-govern groups, or at the very least minimize the burden of each group’s creator.

Thank you for creating this platform for our graduates. I am sure that this is going to be life-changing for so many people.