Overview:

During my final year of undergrad, I participated in the Royal Society of Arts (RSA), student design competition.

I worked along side a group of peers from different disciplines to tackle the design challenge “Dignity in Displacement” for Refugees.

My team explored the current user journey of Refugees navigating the Canadian system. Through doing so we became passionate about changing this process to improve the user experience for the future and current Refugees in Canada.

I lead generative and evaluative research studies through the design process.

Broke down the RSA problem statement, as a means to start exploring the problem space.

Took the questions from the problem statement, and began conducting desk research.

I assigned all team members a list of questions to research, and gave them access to a shared research document.

Overview:

Prior to speaking with the end user (displaced individuals), I wanted to speak with third parties. In order to gain a history of displacement in Canada and knowledge of current refugee services.

The team hoped that by talking to experts first, we would gain knowledge of what language to use when speaking to displaced individuals. Those who may be concerned a vulnerable sector in research.

The 3 Subject Matter Experts

1. Academics & Researchers
   Individuals located in the Kitchener-Waterloo region who currently teach or conduct research on displacement with a focus on Canada

2. Community Groups/Organization/Supports
   Those who work for local groups in the Kitchener Waterloo area that offer services to displaced individuals

3. Displacement Entrepreneurs
   Individuals or groups who have previously explored a similar problem space of displacement, who may have proposed a solution

Research Objective

After speaking with the team about research goals, I defined the research objective for the upcoming interviews.

Interview Protocol

I used the desk research conducted to influence the questions asked for each Subject Matter Expert.

I taught the team how to write interview protocols. Working through introductions, to framing questions.

I lead my team in translating our user interview notes into insights through affinity mapping on a virtual research wall.

Then I began to look for pattens and form groups of notes that had a similar theme. Once the notes were grouped I began to translate them into findings and jobs to be done statements.

Finding: We found a common theme around barriers refugees face. This made us interested in further exploring these barriers through speaking with Refugees.

Research Objective: To identify barriers Refugees face

After leaning from subject matter experts about barriers, our team wanted to validate these barriers were in fact the ones Refugees face by asking Refugees.

Since we did not have direct access to a Refugee group, we turned to social media to release a survey.

Through research our team learned that in Canada there are 3 classifications of Refugees. A Refugee claimant, family sponsored Refugee and government sponsored Refugee.

I designed a persona for each classification of refugee. Using findings from the generative research study and excerpts from user interviews. The personas helped the team understand who they were designing for, and the needs/wants of each user.

I analyzed the data for patterns and insights, from the interviews and survey data.

Discovering that many refugees need assistance/support in:

• Employment

• Housing

• Language

• Education

• Documentation

• A sense of Community

• Medical Care

• Transportation

• Social Support

But through secondary research, I found that many organizations exist that address most of the issues refugees are facing.

Discovering this made me ask, what’s the disconnect? Why do refugees identify needing services that already exist?

To understand the disconnect, I looked at it from the refugees perspective:

Designing the print ad:

Designing the Guerilla Advertisement: