Overview

In 2020, the world was shocked by the spread of Corona virus. It imposed high degrees of anxiety in the society due to its effects on healthcare and economy.

We decided to define an experience to help people to be aware of the COVID 19 spread around themselves.

This project was the very beginning of my UX journey (before I attending UT iSchool). Even though I was not a skilled designer, I participated deeply in the design process to bring the idea from conception to fruition. The experience was challenging but incredibly fulfilling.

Team

Roza Atarod, Hesam Andalib

My Role

UX Design
Interface Design
Illustration
User Testing

Timeline

Mar 2020, One week

Tools

Figma
Illustrator

Problem Statement

How might we overcome the anxieties involved with the spread of virus and keep people informed ?

Approach

I started with a research to find people's areas of concern at this situation. I categorized these areas and defined my design objective. I started sketching ideas and tested my ideas by involving users in the design process. The main ideas in this design are:

Using GPS location tracking data to create city heat maps based on travel history of infected users and inform citizens to take preventive actions before traveling to that regions.
Providing valid information about essential and high-demand products that people concern about
Designing different experiences for infected and healthy users

Background

Today, every one of us is carrying a powerful computer everywhere we go. In the situation of crisis like the Covid19 pandemic, how can we benefit from this power to empower our society?

This design aims at presenting a solution to use location data for preventing more spread of the virus in the community. It requires community participation and also presents some tools for city officials to make better decisions.

Design Process

Problem Space

Empathize

At the first step, we investigated different properties associated with Corona Virus and wrote each one on a sticky.

Then we voted each property and discussed its importance.

Identify Areas of Concern

At the next step, we sorted selected properties based on common areas that each property is associated with. We identified 4 areas of concern to focus on in our solution space.

HMW Questions

At the next step, generated “How Might We” questions based for each category. These questions will be considered for identifying design goals.

HMW ensure people about the availability of products?

HMW inform government about possibly infected people?

HMW help people to manage their mental status?
HMW help to decrease risk of infection in the society?

Stakeholders

At the next step, based on the HMW questions, we identified two main stakeholders/users for this project:

The Government and Citizens.

Solution Space

Wireframing

Based on ideas generated in the previous step, we created wireframe prototypes to address the concern areas identified. These mobile interfaces are designed for citizens.

Click to Click to enlarge

Usability Testing

We asked 5 citizens to try the prototype and let us know their thoughts and concerns. Since we did not have access to government officials, we could not test those prototypes.

Click to Click to enlarge

Takeaways

The final design should satisfy these goals

Final Design

Onboarding Screens

Home Screens

A user who is not infected has different needs from one who is infected.
For a healthy user, the application will prioritize the infection regions information to alert the user for taking preventive actions and avoiding travel to infected areas.
The infection will be submitted by a medical center and once the user is submitted as an infected person, the Home screen will prioritize Medical Hotline for the user.

Geo Location Generated Maps

Market Screen

Users can explore essential products that are highly in demand and its market is stressed. Suppliers will update the information and the application will direct users to their web/mobile applications to buy their needs online.

Reflection

In the short period of time I have worked on this design challenge, I found out a lot about different concerns that users have in crisis situations. I explored various strategies to response to those concerns and provided a solution. However, if I want to develop this project in future, I will concentrate more on the following issues:

Privacy: in crisis, there is a high chance that citizens' privacy being compromised by the presented solutions in digital products. I have to put more time on privacy and interview more users from this point of view

Data Analysis and visualization: location tracking maps and heat maps are two visualization techniques that I supposed many users are familiar with and can understand them. However, validity of this supposition must be investigated since misinterpreting data can conclude to disastrous conditions.