⬅ 🏡

Sarah Beth Doncals

Timeline
10 Weeks
09.12.19 - 11.11.19

Course
PRO 580 - Google Crisis Response
Prof. Ryan Madson
Prof. Thomas Hull

Team Members
Ariana Vallenilla
Chris Feliciano
Dallin Higgins
Elisa Dogor
Jackie Sabillon
Kajal Boghara
Leah Feniger

My Role
Project Manager

Team Members
Lidia De Oleo
Natalie Su
Neema Smith
Ramya Kuchimanchi Xuran Zhu
Yang Chen
Zhuorong Yuan

Overview
Google Search Crisis Response team came to SCAD for a collaboration with students from 8 majors and 9 countries.

Problem
How might Google enable local communities to organize and help each other in times of crisis (with a concentration in natural disasters)? 

Target Users
People experiencing a natural disaster

Primary Research
The team conducted 42 user interviews of students, locals and non-locals. To get a better understanding of how organizations operate during crisis, we interviewed nine organizations from CEMA (Chatham Emergency Management Agency) to the Savannah Animal Shelter. From thousands of data points from interviews and focus groups.

Key Insights
The team conducted 42 user interviews of students, locals and non-locals. To get a better understanding of how organizations operate during crisis, we interviewed nine organizations from CEMA (Chatham Emergency Management Agency) to the Savannah Animal Shelter. From thousands of data points from interviews and focus groups.

Behavior & Emotion 🧠
Organizations 🤝
Resources & Space 🚰
People support each other emotionally during crisis
Donations are crucial to the success of volunteer organizations
People who were prepared for the crisis had resources to spare
People were most stressed when they were alone
People don’t know who or the most effective way to help
People became ill because of lack of access to medication
Communities naturally come together when all put in the same situation
People are willing to volunteer if they have the opportunity
People panic buy when storm announcement was made

How Might We...
From the large trends in our primary and secondary research insights we collected. The team created nine how might we statements. The HMWs were put into in three categories based off the problem statement, enable, organize and help.

Enable 💪
Organize 📈
Help 🚨
...create a live network to communicate the emotional needs of those affected in the community?
...make the process of donating more transparent to broaden donation sources?
...connect people with surplus resources to those who lack resources before the hurricane?
...connect experienced individuals with those who are unprepared or less experienced?
...create a platform that matches volunteers with people in need?
...get information to people who lack consistent access to technology?
...lessen fear of natural disasters and weather unpredictability?
...direct media attention towards volunteer organizations to support their efforts?
...encourage and maintain community networks between relief organizations?

Archetypes
We laid out our interviewees on a mindset matrix. We found that are users are on a spectrum of apathetic to distressed and a people person to an individualist when in crisis. When you design with extreme cases in mind, the majority of your target users will fall in the middle.

Preliminary Concepts
From our insights and how might we statements, the class was divided into 3 ideation teams based off of the problem statement. The team themes connect, facilitate and empower.

Connect
Connect uses Google's platforms to match members of the community to share resources and support each other with in person interactions.

Facilitate (Raise)
Raise facilitate provides multiple channels for donations. Users have the option to raise funds through watching ads, playing games or a monetary donation.

Empower (Community)
Empower shares communities in need stories to raise awareness and empathy over a crisis.

Final Concept
With the midpoint feedback from Google, the team decided on combining the facilitate and empower ideas. The connect idea was a great solution, but simply out of scope. Our product has 3 new features within Google search, stories, donate and explore.

Stories
Stories gives the ability for users in crisis to document and see what is going on around them.
For users outside of the crisis, they are given a first person perspective as to what is going on.

Donate
By living in search, donate give users an easy entry point into helping those in need. Organizations set monetary goals to motivate donations.

Explore
Explore gives users a platform to discover what is going on around the world.

Stepping Into New Territory
I was the project manager. As a design student, I had never formally had the role as PM. I had no idea what I was in for. Below, I listed some of the top takeaways I learned being a PM for 10 weeks.

My Role
Most of my day was spent making sure everyone was on track and the same page. In the beginning of the project, I made a master calendar with all of the teams individual checkpoints and due dates. I also had a daily agenda that included helpful links for the day, what we needed to do, notes and action items for the next time we met.

What I Would Do Differently
This was a huge learning experience for me. I would come into the project with a better understanding of how I cannot be a people pleaser. I struggled with balancing myself between teams. I would have made myself have a more routine schedule in the beginning.

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