February 2023 - May 2023.
I did this internship meanwhile studying my Masters.
The team consisted of me as service designer, two UX-designers and two developers. During the entirety of the project we spoke English due to one team member being from Iceland.
Interning as a service designer at Hive student lab together with four other students, all having different backgrounds and roles. I was involved in conducting interviews, workshops, user testing and prototyping. Our project was to create an MVP of a mobile version of a new/updated peer-to-peer support for Bris (Childrens Rights in Society).
Background
Hive is a student-driven internship created by Humblebee, a design bureau based in Gothenburg. Where students from different backgrounds and roles work together with research, prototyping and developing a digital product for a client, in our case Bris.
Read more about Humblebee & Hive hereBris - Barnens Rätt i Samhället (Childrens Rights in Society) is a non-profit children’s rights organization and the provider of the national child helpline that offers anonymous, free and professional support to children under the age of 18, through chat, messages and telephone.
In 2002 Bris launched Forum, a online discussion forum on their webpage which contains of 12 topics, such as school, thoughts and feelings etc. It is a public forum so everybody can read it. No account is needed. However to create and/or respond to a post an account is needed. Bris also reviews all answers and posts before they are published to ensure that no grooming or bullying occur. In the last decade the use on Forum has decreased.
Design challenge
Forum landing page.
Upon reviewing Bris current webpage and its functions, it's clear the design felt outdated and doesn't align with modern visual trends. Functionalities are static, not meeting user expectations for seamless interaction. Additionally, the content fails to emotionally connect with visitors on the importance of children's rights.
.png)
One of the first things we did was to create a service roadmap for the project and the activities we knew would be needed in order to achieve an estimation of how we would plan our time. during the project some smaller adjustments were made.
Early on I together with the business designer planned a workshop with Bris. The reason was to understand what employees at Bris think of their current service Forum and why the activity had decreased so much.
The workshop was done online through Miro together with four employees at Bris, all having different roles.
Early on I together with the business designer planned a workshop with Bris. The reason was to understand what employees at Bris think of their current service Forum and why the activity had decreased so much.
The workshop was performed online through Miro & Teams together with four employees at Bris, all having different roles.
After the workshop with Bris and after summarizing the insights I created a service blueprint over Bris's current Peer-to-Peer service to achieve a better understanding of how it works and the likely faults in it.
One finding that the service was not being used a lot anymore was Bris had focused on the advertising their other service beforehand. Thus resulting in the awareness of Forum being low
Due to Forum needs to be safe so that no cyberbullying, judging, etc. occurs every post and response is moderated before being published. However, the moderation is handled by various departments with other tasks. Which makes the moderation sometimes take up to a day.
Finally, Bris attributed the decline in Forums' usage to outdated and uninteresting features. The service had been deprioritized, lacking the necessary attention, consequently rendering it obsolete.
Given our time constraints, we were unable to address all aspects contributing to the decline in the Forum's popularity. Therefore, our focus was exclusively directed towards the enhancement of Design and Functions.
Early on we e-mailed several youth centers in the Gothenburg area describing our background and to see if children at the youth centers would be interested in participating in workshops. With no youth centers answering our emails, I started calling. After some calls with had three different youth centers in Gothenburg that were open to us coming to the youth centers to present the project further in detail.
When talking to the youth center employees further, we highlighted that we would focus the make the workshops fun and the importance of it, after the meetings they were open to us having workshops. The children at the youth centers varied in age and we figured it is better if the youth center employees checked if there was interest in participating since they knew them from before. might not trust us Since the target group was under 18, we had also prepared and handed out consent forms for the children to give to their parents.
We talked to the youth centers before the workshops as well, checking to see if there was interest and that the consent forms had been filled in and handed over to the youth center employees. We figured the optimal for a workshop was seven participants. One youth center said there was interest among the children, but the children did not hand over signed consent forms. For that reason, the planned workshop for that youth center was canceled.
The user testing with adults proved to be invaluable as it provided us with fresh perspectives. During this testing phase, we gained insights into off margins, spelling errors, and other similar issues that we, as the development team, had become blind to due to extended exposure to the project. Addressing these observations allowed us to enhance the overall quality and user experience of the product before involving children in the testing process.
The testing was done remotely with the kids having different tasks they needed to perform. We informed them to explain their initial thoughts when performing tasks.
During the internship, working closely with fellow students was essential. Coordinating efforts was both productive and enjoyable. We combined our skills to tackle challenges together, making problem-solving a rewarding experience.Our teamwork allowed us to appreciate each other's strengths and collaborate effectively. The mentors' guidance played a crucial role in steering us in the right direction, and we're truly grateful for their support.Beyond tasks, our coordination strengthened relationships and highlighted the importance of teamwork. This experience showcased the impact of collaboration and mentorship on our learning journey.
The team. From left to right: Linda (developer), Anna (UX), Erik (developer) & Me.
.png)
Both during workshops and user testing the children had a hard time understanding the word Forum. This showed us that a new name was needed so we came up with the name “unga till unga”. The response to that name was that it was too serious and grown up and the children wanted something more “cool” and preferably in english. Our second attempt was the name “Peer” which the children were positive towards and after receiving their feedback the name turned into “Peers” since it felt more inclusive and welcoming.
The old version of Bris Peer-to-Peer support have very dull colors, we gave the whole service a bit of a color makeover and also some interesting illustration in order to create it more visusally pleasing
Posts and responses takes about a day to be moderated. According to the users they want the moderation to be immediately or non-existent. Since that is not possible a quick reaction-function was implemented. The quick reactions are done through different symbols which does not pass moderation. Even though according the user interviews and testing a written response is more appreciated and helpful a quick reaction lets the writer of the post know that the post have been viewed, making them feel heard and given some comfort. The symbols were tested and iterated since it was important that they were experienced as supportive and positive.
This was something we were not expecting to be something the children should be asking for, but this was something that they felt strongly about. The kids wanted rules to be in place, for the sense of security but also that we made them as visibly as possible in the start of a session as they felt that everybody had to read the rules before engaging in the forum.
Another functionality that was implemented was for users to request answers from counsellors. The reasoning behind this is due to if a user has not received any answear from another child it allows the user to still receive some answer to their concern, making the user feel heard.
We presented the final deliverable to Humblebee, CEO of Bris. Our comprehensive efforts to update the website's design and functions were encapsulated in this presentation, reflecting our commitment to enhancing the organization's digital presence.
At our final presentation. From left to right: Linda (developer), Anna-Maria (UX), Anna (UX), Erik (developer) & Me