I did My First UX Case Study

It is estimated that 14% of Kenyan women and 6% of men aged 15–49 have experienced sexual violence at least once in their lifetime.(KDHS 2019). Myths, and false beliefs — misconceptions resulting from incorrect reasoning — about rape, rape victims, and rapists are rife in Kenya. For example, half the population will blame a rape victim under any circumstance. This led to the formation of Idhini Ke

Idhini KE is a community organization which aims at creating awareness on the sexual harassment while promoting inclusive sexual education among young people. The organization is currently 3 weeks old and has managed to recruit 25 volunteers aged 20–26 with different skill sets that may be useful in achieving the organization’s goals. The volunteers have been divided into Researchers, Content craters, Graphic designers and Fundraising (financial) team. The current engagement platforms are Instagram (following of 280) and Twitter (following of 102). Recently the organization got a partnership with Wezesha Binti, another community organization to help raise funds for sanitary towels and realized for them (Idhini KE) to achieve their objectives and initiate and sustain other partnerships effectively they will require much more engagement and an online presence in the space.

Problem Statement :Improving Engagement

The goal for the project is to ultimately improve user interactions with Idhini and increase online engagement.

1) Take a stab at framing it as a design question.

How do you improve online engagements for Idhini KE?

2) Now state the ultimate impact you’re trying to have

How might we help achieve the objectives of Idhini KE of creating awareness on the sexual harassment while promoting inclusive sexual education through online platforms.

3) What are some of the solutions to your problem?

Develop a website for the organization that will:

4) Finally write down some of the context and constraints that you’re facing

The organization is purely voluntary and input towards it depends on an individual and therefore partnerships which may arise in financial input will be beneficial in pushing and running some of the activities, however, at the moment the organization is solely dependent on its social media platforms as its tool for online engagement.

5) Does your question need a tweak? Try it again.

Not Really.

Process and Why you did it.

In order to gain better insights, I joined the graphics and design team. The team consists of two other members whose primary roles were designing posters and creative ways to express information presented by the research team and curate what posts go up on the social media platforms.

My main method of research was through questionnaires, interviews and analyzing social media analytics. I had to use methods that were compliant with the Covid 19 Pandemic precautionary measures in place. The research participants involved were the volunteers working within the graphics team and existing followers on the social media platforms.

Research methodology

The graphics team

It was easy to conduct interviews with them as we had already been acquainted to each other. I held interviews with both of them during subsequent phone calls and a team zoom call in order to find out the following:

Volunteer Questions

From the interviews:

Phone calls with people already acquainted with are often easy to navigate as the caller and recipient have previously had conversation and you ease into the conversation, however, for the purposes of research I had to have a notebook with a clear checklist of what I want to find out and take notes of the user’s responses. I texted both participants to schedule a call stating the objectives of the call. I timed both the calls to 6 minutes each; which was enough to exchange pleasantries and ease into the conversation and get relevant feedback. The guided checklist was useful in commanding the conversations.I also took advantage of the closing minutes of a zoom call we had as the graphics team to seek further clarification.

*important lessons from conducting a phone call interview;

Limit the content of each question to a single idea to avoid confusion

At the end of the interview, summarize the points and ask the respondent if the summary is correct.

From the questionnaire:

I created the user feedback form below on google forms

Designing the questionnaire

1. Deciding the information required.

The information required largely revolves around the original design challenge objective of improving user engagement for Idhini Ke.

Distinguish the audience that you appeal to (gender/age/social dynamics)

Find out perceptions on the current engagement

Current challenges the users are facing with the platforms

2. Defining the target respondents.

The form consisted of two parts: general feedback and Idhini users section. The general feedback is targeted at a general user of the internet who might have or hasn’t had any prior engagement with Idhini Ke whereas the second part is limited to individuals who already have had previous engagements.

3. Choosing the method(s) of reaching your target respondents.

Distribution was through the social media platforms (Instagram/twitter/WhatsApp).This was to appeal to individuals who have already engaged with the organization through the platforms before as well as random users of social media platforms. I shared the link to the forms and a brief description of what the research is about.

4. Developing the question wording.

The Questionnaire was a formal standardized questionnaire where the wording and order of questions allow the respondents to receive the same stimuli. Initially I had 23 questions around the predefined information required, however, after checking for relevance and redundancy I had 8 questions in the first section and 7 questions in the second section.

I put the questions into a meaningful order and format starting from the relatively faster questions to respond to (sex/age) and eased to the much more technical ones(ratings). Finally I checked the length of the questionnaire and ensured it was not too wordy.

5. Pre-test the questionnaire.

Submitted the Questionnaire to Liz Kagimbi and the other group members for feedback and it was successful as the questions were seemingly manageable and I rolled out the form after.

*important lesson from form design/distribution

Have clear vision of the information required and frame as many questions around them as possible.

External feedback is important before going live with the form

Set time frames and targets of the minimum number of respondents required.

Brainstorm

As the form was live, I had a brainstorm session over a zoom call with Carol Joelene, Hellen Kokach and Daisy (Fellow mentees) to share our design challenges, objectives we hope to meet, preliminary insights and leverage collective thinking.

From the session the aspect of generating money and a reach to an audience with feature phones or unable to afford data bundles cropped up. After snowballing ideas, the idea of developing a USSD (Unstructured Supplementary Service Data) cropped up.

Submitted the Questionnaire to Liz Kagimbi and the other group members for feedback and it was successful as the questions were seemingly manageable and I rolled out the form after.

*important lesson from form design/distribution

Have clear vision of the information required and frame as many questions around them as possible.

External feedback is important before going live with the form

Set time frames and targets of the minimum number of respondents required.

Brainstorm

As the form was live, I had a brainstorm session over a zoom call with Carol Joelene, Hellen Kokach and Daisy (Fellow mentees) to share our design challenges, objectives we hope to meet, preliminary insights and leverage collective thinking.

From the session the aspect of generating money and a reach to an audience with feature phones or unable to afford data bundles cropped up. After snowballing ideas, the idea of developing a USSD (Unstructured Supplementary Service Data) cropped up.

Constraints for developing USSD platform

Time schedule may be limited

Technical abilities

Achieve ultimate objective of improving engagement

Affordability

Generate income

What are the benefits?

USSD works on all phones

It’s free for clients to use and highly cost effective for you to implement and run

Highly interactive

Rapid exchange of data

Downloading Responses.

After a week of having the form live, I had managed to get 11 respondents, which were sufficient for deducing patterns and drawing insights. The following are the responses gathered;

(insert image/tables)

Creating insight statements

How might we improve online engagement for Idhini KE

Theme: Content

Insights:

1. Frequency of posts (at least twice daily)

2.length of posts

3.Majority liked the colors

4. Level of engagement is average

Theme: Platform

Insights:

1.Instagram is more interactive

2.Bundles accessing Twitter/Instagram are expensive

3. Social media is not a credible platform for organizations

Insight: Social media is not a credible platform for organizations

Q. How might we establish credibility of the organization?

Insight: Bundles accessing Twitter/Instagram are expensive

Q. How might we make access to content cost effective for users?

Insight: Instagram is more interactive

Q. How might we Improve interactions across all platforms?

Insight: Majority liked the colors

Q. How might we continue to incorporate the colors to future engagement ?

Insight Frequency of posts (at least twice daily)

Q. How might we maintain the required frequency of posting?

The ultimate impact Idhini Ke is trying to achieve is creating awareness and dissemination of accurate information on sexual harassment. The use of social media platforms and a website would achieve this, however internet penetration rates in Kenya stand at 43% (Digital Report Kenya 2020) and a good majority may not opt to buy bundles for such information.

The proposed solution is the USSD platform which would allow feature phone users access the platform at subsidized cost and/or subscribe to bulk SMS from the platform.

USSD Prototype.

(insert image of user map.

The main menu offers 7 options

Optimizing services;

The following primary questions informed my design strategy

Constraints for developing USSD platform

Time schedule may be limited

Technical abilities

Achieve ultimate objective of improving engagement

Affordability

Generate income

What are the benefits?

USSD works on all phones

It’s free for clients to use and highly cost effective for you to implement and run

Highly interactive

Rapid exchange of data

Downloading Responses.

After a week of having the form live, I had managed to get 11 respondents, which were sufficient for deducing patterns and drawing insights. The following are the responses gathered;

(insert image/tables)

Creating insight statements

How might we improve online engagement for Idhini KE

Theme: Content

Insights:

1. Frequency of posts (at least twice daily)

2.length of posts

3.Majority liked the colors

4. Level of engagement is average

Theme: Platform

Insights:

1.Instagram is more interactive

2.Bundles accessing Twitter/Instagram are expensive

3. Social media is not a credible platform for organizations

Insight: Social media is not a credible platform for organizations

Q. How might we establish credibility of the organization?

Insight: Bundles accessing Twitter/Instagram are expensive

Q. How might we make access to content cost effective for users?

Insight:Instagram is more interactive

Q. How might we Improve interactions across all platforms?

Insight:Majority liked the colors

Q. How might we continue to incorporate the colors to future engagement ?

Insight Frequency of posts (at least twice daily)

Q. How might we maintain the required frequency of posting?

The ultimate impact Idhini Ke is trying to achieve is creating awareness and dissemination of accurate information on sexual harassment. The use of social media platforms and a website would achieve this,however internet penetration rates in Kenya stand at 43% (Digital Report Kenya 2020) and a good majority may not opt to buy bundles for such information.

The proposed solution is the USSD platform which would allow feature phone users access the platform at subsidized cost and/or subscribe to bulk SMS from the platform.

USSD Prototype.

(insert image of user map.

The main menu offers 7 options

Optimizing services;

The following primary questions informed my design strategy

Mind mapping

Spectrums/situations

Insight from data

Design screen

User Story for ‘Make donation’ feature

Idhini Ke is a purely voluntary community organization and does not necessarily generate income. Donations are a critical part of such an organization as they allow it perform various functions such as supporting its communities, hosting services etc.

Moreover, partnerships with other organizations with similar objectives may require the organization to influence contributions to some of their projects as part of the partnership. For example the current ongoing partnership with ‘Wezesha Binti,’ community organization that works to support equal access to sustainable menstrual hygiene and sexual and reproductive health education.

The partnership led to the emergence of the #BuildABintiBox campaign which aims at raising Ksh. 170 000 to support 200 girls from Busia with a Binti Box ( )

The user upon selecting the preferred language is directed to the main menu. ‘Make donation’ is option 7. Depending on the size of the screen, the option may require the user to scroll or select the more option. Selection of the more option means an extra step for the user which is not efficient therefore a scrollable version is preferred.

The menu should generate a list of options to donate to :

E.g

1.Idhini Ke projects

2.Build a Binti box

This selection is important for accountability purposes.

The user is prompted to enter amount s/he wishes to donate and immediately prompted to enter M-PESA pin.

User receives a confirmation message from both the service provider and Idhin Ke that payment and amounts received.

Outcomes and Results.

I begun the project 4 weeks ago and shared some of the insights with the team

Instagram and Twitter analytics show improvement in followership and engagements on the social media platforms.

This is attributed to the insights I got on frequency/length and times of posting which I took into account and implemented what I was able to change immediately.

Talks and designs of a website are in development as I brought it up from this study as a means to improve overall engagement.

The USSD platform is subject to further studies for development.

LESSONS LEARNT FROM UX STUDY

Add a comment

What is your view?

Send

Related posts:

A Very Short Guide to Freelancing

The gig economy refers to the rapidly growing market of professionals who offer short-term services for a fee through freelancing websites. Freelancing is working on specific short-term projects for… Read more

Contra el antipopulismo

Los conservadores y la izquierda populista adoran el antagonismo. Pero la democracia requiere a veces compromisos Read more

The honey advocates

There was a scarcity of honey. A group of bears got together as honey advocates to proclaim its importance. The bees and the blossoms took little notice. “They are not interested in what we can… Read more