Helping the homeless on

the go

Having become one of the worlds largest companies with products designed to make peoples lives easier, San Francisco-based Okavango was facing criticism that its technology was helping to widen the social divide between the wealthy and the poor. The CEO wanted to figure out a way to apply its resources altruistically.

[NOTE: this case study is based on a hypothetical exercise]

San Francisco had a large homeless population and a recent spike in theft & street crime. Okavango believe that with many people no longer carrying cash, homeless people are struggling to make ends meet by panhandling and resorting to crime.

FEED, an app that would allow people on the go to instantly order a sandwich for a homeless person on the street. Okavango would donate a portion of the revenues to a local homeless shelter, and its branding would be present on the app.

There was an increased rate of donations to the homeless while enhancing Okavango’s reputation in the community.

UX Designer/Researcher: myself

• Sketch/Invision for prototyping
• Whiteboard, sticky notes, thoughts and ideas 

I first met with project sponsor - COO of Okavango, then key stakeholders, to find out what problem the company is looking to solve.

• Reduce poverty?
• Address homelessness? 
• Publicity?
• Making it easier for people to give?

I spoke with people in the community i.e. non-profits, police, government agencies

• Prevalence of mental illness, drugs or alcohol
• Increase in recent years in part because of high rents
• Shelters lack resources, and include people we don’t see on the streets

I also spent time on the street and visited shelters.

• “At shelters, people steal.”
• “My wife left me. My whole world revolves around getting my next fix.”
• “My landlord kicked me out. Shelters are full and I have nowhere to go.”
• “I suffer from schizophrenia and need my meds.”

I observed how busy professionals interacted with the homeless.

• Tried to ignore panhandlers
• Appeared scared or disgusted
• Apologized that they had no cash on them, but appeared that they wanted to help.

I then interviewed 10 people

• “I would give more often but I don’t always have cash on me.”
• “I give when I can. That could be me some day.”
• “My brother was a heroin addict and ended up on the street. I’ll buy them some food, but not cash, otherwise they’ll spend it on drugs.”
• “With so many billionaires in this down, we can’t help more people??”

I drew a map in order to understand the enormity of the project and all of the interrelationships.

It was decided that the user would be the donator, as that person would be the one to initiate any action to help. Marie was created to exemplify, based on research synthesis.

Based on the research and discovery work, we aligned with the stakeholders to frame the problem and arrived at following problem statement:

"How can we do our part to help the world around us

In order to help address homelessness in our city

So that we can be recognized as community leaders."

In order to get all stakeholders on board, explore the problem statement and introduce the concept of user-centered design, I led a one-day design workshop based on the Google Ventures process. Attendees included the CEO, COO, Chief Marketing Officer, Head of PR, Director of Product and VP Engineering

Agenda:

• Present problem statement
• Review persona /journey map – identify pain points
• Brainstorm solutions
• Prioritize
• Sketch/prototype

• Native app for iOS and Android
• Eliminates need for hard currency
• Frictionless “One click” ordering. The restaurant automatically receives location and payment information.
• For each order, Okavango will make a donation to a local shelter or rehab facility
• Feature Okavango’s branding

The next step was to deliver the prototype to Agile development team for ongoing, iterative product development. Future ideas included

• Tie-ins with local restaurants and small business
• Youth education program encouraging STEM, and including internship opportunities for children in underserved communities.