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Georgia Collard

My name is Georgia Collard and I am a final year student of the MSc UX Design program. As part of my final year research project, I created a project with the aim of improving peoples knowledge of street harassment in Ireland using empowering user experience design principles. Currently, I am working as a product design intern for LetsGetChecked.

This video details the walkthrough of the SH Eire prototype. The prototype is an interactive handbook with the aim of providing people with resources/information about street harassment in Ireland.

What is the problem with street harassment in Ireland? The problem, is that 88% of Irish women have experienced street harassment before the age of 17 and globally that number is at 82%. According to research carried out by Bourke et al 2015 for Dublin city council there is an issue with defining street harassment in Ireland, Ardnt 2018 also addresses that there is an issue globally with defining street harassment due to definitions not being inclusive. They do not highlight that anyone can experience street harassment. This has then caused an issue with reporting of street harassment in Ireland as people do not know what is ‘worthy’ for reporting. The SAVI report which stands for Sexual Abuse and Violence in Ireland is a report conducted by the Rape Crisis Ireland found that people do not report harassment because of shame, and confusion. Bourke conclude that there is a need to empower and inform women and girls regarding street harassment in order to combat this issues. They also highlight there is a need for a safe space for casual conversation for everybody to talk about this issue.

When it comes to street harassment there are many campaigns associated with it from #MeToo, Stop Street harassment and Hollaback! They all share a similar goal which is to empower those affected by providing them with knowledge, resources, and connections. Empowering user experience design carries the same motive as these campaigns. It focuses on empowering people to solve their own problems” whilst seeking a seamless user experience. This brings us to the focus of this research which is to investigate the effectiveness of empowering UX design principles when measuring 1. Ones knowledge of street harassment 2. Two, The systems ease of use By developing a mobile app which supports people who are seeking clear, concise information about street harassment in Ireland.

This brings us to the research questions 1. How might we use empowering user experience design to improve people’s knowledge of Street harassment in Ireland? 2. How might we use empowering ux design to increase a systems ease of use? Slide

Methodology followed the process of the NNGroup Design Thinking 101 model. This framework allows for a human centric approach as it helps understand, explore and materialize to achieve the product necessary for the user.

Persona of Shauna was created to present a realistic and reliable representation of the target users which are college students who are looking to gain clear information around street harassment. The persona was created from the collection of both qualitative and quantitative data found during user research and literature review [37]. Personas allow for deeper empathy and understanding of the user group. In the case, due to the sensitive nature of the research topic, personas are a good measurement tool, as access to end users was limited.

Illustrations were used with target user in mind. they were designed to be inclusive (give users a sense of belonging. To add friendliness in the design to help ease users into the application. They were also designed keeping in mind the lasting impact empowerment principle by Frank and Gallula as well as creating a meaningful delight which is part of empowering design according to Riddles. Colours Pink was chosen as the primary colour because pink is a colour that represents connections according to Adobe [57]. Pink is a powerful colour and can be seen to represent “passion and dusty or toned down pink comes across as “calming and neutral” [57]. According to Adobe, using the colour pink can symbolise change as the colour pink was once associated with boys but is now associated with girls. Therefore, this colour is very suiting for the topic of the SH Eire product. But other colours were introduced to add more diversity to the app. Language The tone of voice was created with empowerment design principles in mind. Easy accessible language to enable all users to improve their knowledge. Human tone to give users a sense of connection, something vital for empowerment design.

From analyzing the data 3 of the 4 hypotheses were accepted and H1 was rejected. There were no differences in users knowledge of what to do when witnessing street harassment from either artefact.

The study confirmed that Knowledge of street harassment can be improved when using empowering user experience design principles. As research has shown this is due to the information’s “findability” and “easy access” as some participants of the study pointed out. It has also confirmed that when empowering user experience design principles are applied there is a high usability success score. This study has also highlighted that there is an urgent need for street harassment to have its own place within the law. Lastly, from the research conducted throughout this study, it was discovered that there is an urgent need for street harassment to have its own place within the law. This could be beneficial for reporting purposes and tackling this issue of street harassment in Ireland. This is only the beginning to get street harassment recognised as a definite criminal offence. Further work will include promoting awareness of street harassment all over Ireland and hopefully securing enough signatures to make a change. Thus, creating further empowerment.

Project Description

The research study focused on creating an interactive handbook to help improve peoples knowledge of street harassment in Ireland by applying Empowering UX Design.

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Improving knowledge of Street Harassment through Empowering UX Design

The research study investigated the effectiveness of
empowering UX design principles when measuring
1. One's knowledge of street harassment
2. Two, The system's ease of use
By developing a mobile app that supports people who are seeking clear, concise information about street harassment in Ireland.

Download Pictorial PDF

User Experience Design

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